Contrary to Monday's claim, the government has still not dispatched samples of H5-infected birds to EU Reference Laboratory in England to determine if the virus was the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, officials said.
On Monday, authorities in Islamabad confirmed Pakistan had detected H5-type bird flu in chickens on two poultry farms and said tests were underway to determine if the virus was the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain.
"We (government) have sent samples from infected birds for testing at the EU Reference Laboratory for avian influenza in Weybridge, England, and results are expected by end of this week," Food Secretary Muhammad Ismail Qureshi was then quoted as telling reporters.
But when approached on Wednesday, a Food Ministry spokesperson confirmed the government had still not sent any sample to England due to "some administrative" reasons.
Animal Husbandry Commissioner Dr Muhammad Afzal said these samples would be sent to the EU Reference lab either on Wednesday or a day after.
When asked why the matter was delayed, the commissioner said: "Look! It's not necessary to confirm the disease from any part of the world. We (government) ourselves have a reliable system and the results we announced on Monday are authentic."
Afzal told Business Recorder all 25,000 chickens at two NWFP farms - one each in Abbottabad and Charsadda - had been culled voluntarily by owners themselves.
He said the officials of the provincial health and food departments had done the disinfection of both the farms in Abbottabad and Charsadda where H5 strain was detected. The employees who were looking after the chickens at these farms had also been screened and they were safe as no transmission of virus was found, he added.
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