Ghana has launched an appeal for a 14-million dollar assistance to help it contain the avian influenza disease, which was first reported in the country in April.

It urgently needs 2.8 million dollars to finance the implementation of a six-month emergency plan of action drafted by the Ministry of Food and Agricultural (MoFA) in collaboration with the Food and Agricultural Organisation.

The Minister of MoFA, Ernest A.Debrah, who made the appeal at a meeting with its development partners in Accra yesterday said, there has not been any case of human infection with the disease in Ghana yet.

The meeting was to discus and exchange views on the outbreak of the disease in the country to find ways and means to fight it.

Mr.Debrah announced that the government has to date paid ¢340 million compensation to farmers whose poultry and poultry products were destroyed by the Veterinary Services as a measure to control the disease.

He noted that the amount did not include the compensation to be paid to farmers in the Sunyani area who also lost their poultry products as a result of the control measures implemented by the Veterinary Services.

He said the Veterinary Services are conducting active surveillance activities, which involves sampling of products from poultry farms in the areas surrounding the outbreak farms.

“Health screening of the people on the affected farms is also being conducted as a precaution by the Ghana Health Service,” he said

The minister observed that Ghana is faced with a lot of constraints with the implementation of the recommended FAO strategy for the control and eradication of the disease.

The constraints, he said included weak animal disease surveillance and information, weak veterinary diagnostic capacities, inadequate logistics for decontamination, low level of biosecurity on farms and sub-optimal level of public awareness on issues relating to the surveillance and control of the disease.

He explained that the situation has made “the establishment of a stable enzootic situation and further transboundary spread inevitable,” unless the disease is brought under control and eliminated.

Giving statistics on birds killed, he said in the Sunyani area a total of 210 birds died while 180 birds were involved in a culling operation.

In the Tema area, he said 11,743 birds were killed while 328 crates of eggs were also destroyed, noting that the Veterinary Services culled 12,008 birds.

Mr. Debrah said the six-month emergency plan would “put in place timely and decisive interventions so as to avoid the development and establishment of a more serious situation in the near future with the spread of the disease to the country’s districts, regions and even to neighbouring countries”