Accra, Aug. 17, GNA - The Government is still very vigilant against avian influenza although no outbreak of the disease has been recorded. "This is because we know fully well that the incidence of the disease can occur in one farm anytime any day, as long as we continue to have movement of birds and humans within and across our borders," Mr Kwamena Bartels, Minister of Information and National Orientation has said.

Mr Bartels in a speech read for him by a Director at the Ministry, Mr Dominic Sampong at a day's workshop in Accra for staff of the Ministry, said what was needed was vigilance and intensification of education programmes to eventually minimize the socio-economic impact of the flu on the poultry industry.

Over 60 selected cinema commentators and regional information officers of the Information Services Department, under the Ministry of Information are attending the workshop, which is being organized by the Sector Ministry with sponsorship by UN Children's Fund. Mr Bartels said because of the wrong messages that were earlier put in the public domain about the flu, there was a scare among the populace, who stopped consuming poultry products. He, however, expressed happiness that latest indications showed a rise in poultry consumption due to the right messages being disseminated to the public through the media.

Mr Bartels described the information officers as the right agents to take the message to the grassroots to educate the rural people that poultry was safe and that chickens and eggs should be well cooked. "The bird flu is currently more of an economic threat to Ghana than a health threat...."

The Minister urged the officers to tell the populace in the languages they understood best that, "not one case of bird flu has been confirmed in a human even in the whole of West Africa". Mr Dan Dzide, Programme Communication Officer, UNICEF, said the organization had so far committed more than 420 million cedis to cover both the training programme of the officers and the community campaign project on the disease, which would be carried out from August 24 to September 7.

He said the officers, after the training workshop, would interpret messages on the flu into nine major Ghanaian languages under the massive interactive community campaign throughout Ghana.

Dr Mensah Agyen-Frempong, Director of the Veterinary Services Department, said it was good that messages were now being taken into the hinterland so that the people could be well informed and educated on the disease.

He said with winter soon to be experienced in the northern hemisphere, which would force migratory birds into our parts of the world, it was necessary that such a campaign was carried out to alert the people to avoid any contact or interaction with the birds.