Veterinary Authorities in the Bono East Region are on red alert over possible outbreak of Avian Influenza, popularly known as Bird flu in the region.

Regional Veterinary Officer, Dr. Anthony Osei-Tutu in an interview with JoyNews said officers in the region, have been instructed to put in monitoring measures in order to prevent an outbreak of the disease.

“As we speak, the outbreak is already in five regions namely; Greater Accra, Volta, Central, Ashanti and Western North. Bono East Region, so far, has not recorded any case. So I've tasked my District officers to be on the alert for farms that are recording high mortality rates, so that they'll send samples to us which would be forwarded to Accra veterinary laboratory for further testing to ascertain whether we have the virus in our region or not," he said.

The Department, according to Dr. Osei-Tutu is organising sensitization workshops for farmers to educate them on various preventive measures to save their farms from a possible outbreak of the disease.

"Plans are afoot to organize various sensitization and education programs to advise them on measures that they have to put in place to prevent the virus from affecting their farms," he noted.

He again stated that, "we have started at the office level and sooner than later, we'll move to radio stations, we'll organize training for them to ensure that they go by the measures that would ensure that bird flu is prevented from our region".

Meanwhile, Dr. Anthony Osei-Tutu has cautioned the public to consume only well-cooked chicken and its products in order to stay safe from infections.

"I have to say emphatically that in this era where we have an outbreak of bird flu in other regions, which haven't gotten to my region yet, I'll say to the public that they can consume chicken and chicken products except that they must be very well cooked before they consume them".

He further added that, "we know with bird flu, the infection is of viral origin and the virus dies at a temperature between 60 and 70 degrees and we know that well-cooked foods are at 100 degrees Celsius and so if we adhere to such regulations, the virus would die and therefore the product will be suitable for consumption".