CAIRO: Vaccines available against avian flu only cover 36 percent of 300 million birds in rural farms, according to a workshop held Sunday by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the General Authority for Veterinary Services. Titled "Evaluation of the National Campaign to Combat Avian Flu, the workshop brought together experts who said that veterinary authorities' efforts only cover 10 percent of poultry production. They also criticized the inefficiency in testing for other diseases and monitoring animal slaughterhouses. The amount of vaccinations is barely sufficient to cover the workforce that will distribute them and the responsive farmers who are willing to vaccinate their birds, Saber Abdel Aziz, head of the epidemic and poultry diseases at the General Authority for Veterinary Services, told Daily News Egypt. Abdel Aziz said that 600 million doses are needed to cover the entire poultry sector; however, the authority can only afford to provide 120 million doses. Participants at the workshop criticized the lack of sufficient human and financial resources and called for a more active role by the veterinary services authority in combating the virus. Out of 13,000 registered veterinarians, we only have 6500 available, 70 percent of which are unqualified for field work because they are over 50 years old. We end up with only 1,200 veterinarians while at least 5,000 are needed, Abdel Aziz said He explained that no new veterinarians have been appointed since 1994 because of the lack of funds. Abdel Aziz added that there is a lack of preventive equipment such as special vests or cars to transfer veterinarians. "We only have 1,350 cars, that's one car for every 20 veterinarians. Hamed Samaha, head of the General Authority for Veterinary Services said that Minister of Agriculture Amin Abaza filed a request to Cabinet, asking them to assign the faculty of veterinary medicine graduates to work in various governorates to contain avian flu. "Only two percent of poultry farms apply bio-security measures, Samaha said. According to Abdel Aziz, in 2006 the first avian flu campaign vaccinated 90 million birds. However, subsequent campaigns didn t achieve the same level of success because farmers were unresponsive. It is a problem of awareness, he said. At first farmers were concerned so they cooperated with the authorities but now they are more confident so they don t respond to our efforts, he said. He was, however, optimistic about efforts this year.
