The Poultry Farmers Association of Ghana is appealing to the Ghana Veterinary Services to exempt farmers from the cost of disinfecting bird flu infected farms to encourage farmers to report outbreaks.

According to the farmers, the charges imposed by the veterinary services before infected poultry farms are disinfected, are unbearable since farmers are already losing from the destruction of the birds affected by the flu.

Speaking to Joy Business, the Vice President of the Greater Accra Poultry Farmers Association of Ghana, Kwame Ntim Duodu appealed to government to step in since poultry farmers are losing all their investments.

“If you ask a farmer who has lost most of his birds to the flu to still pay for the cost of the disinfection exercise, it will be a burden”, he said.

He maintained that it will be prudent and encouraging if government borne all the cost of disinfection to encourage farmers to report cases of the flu.

“The veterinary services should do more than what they are doing currently. A report from a farmer in Sunyani says that the vet services attended his farm that was affected by bird flu and they asked the farmer to buy the disinfectant to disinfect the place”.

According to Mr. Ntim Duodo, the issue of bird flu is public health situation that must be addressed through state intervention.

He stressed that the farmers are already going through difficult moments by reporting cases, which lead to the destruction of their birds.

“The farmer is already in a difficult situation. If the farmer had the resources to buy the disinfectant and destroy the bird he or she would have done so and just report,” he said, adding that the disinfection and the compensation are major motivations for farmers to report cases of outbreaks.