Musa Pam, Jos
An outbreak of bird flu, also known as avian influenza, has hit Dong village in Jos North Local Government of Plateau State, killing over 5,000 birds.
The Chief Veterinary Officer of the state, Dr Sipak Shase’et, who disclosed this to New Telegraph on Tuesday in Jos, said the outbreak had affected five farms in the Jos North Local Government Area.
“We received an information from a Veterinary Doctor that that handles one of the farms in Dong Jos North LGC on January 26 and went to the farm and investigated and our suspicion for avian influenza was very high and we took samples and sent to NVRI Vom including other farms that were suspected and the result came out that all the samples tested positive of avian influenza on February 2.”
He said so far five farms have positive bird flu cases, saying the state will implore traced back mechanism to discover where exactly the virus came from.
The Chief Veterinary Officer disclosed that based on investigation the virus was imported from Kano State to Plateau State by a Kano resident, who is an egg merchant and who has a farm in Jos North who shuttles between Kano and Jos.