ISLAMABAD, 28 February 2006 — Bird flu has been detected in Pakistan. At two poultry farms in Charsadda and Mardan in the North Western Frontier Province, bird flu has been detected by livestock experts.

Police sealed off the two poultry farms and workers using poison gas started slaughtering 25,000 chickens, officials said.

Pakistan had sent samples from infected birds for testing at the EU Reference Laboratory for avian influenza in Weybridge, England, and results were expected within a week or so. The supervisor of one of the affected farms said 2,000 egg-laying hens had died during the past week, although he insisted it was a normal rate.

“Police have been deployed outside the farm and farm workers are also not being allowed to go out,” Alamgir Khan, of the Gul Poultry Farm at Charsadda, told AFP.

Both the farms have been quarantined, said Rana Mohammed Akhlaq, livestock commissioner at the Agriculture Ministry. There was no ban yet on the movement of poultry, he added.

He said the poultry industry would decide whether to kill chickens in the infected area, although slaughter would be mandatory if the virus turns out to be H5N1.

“It will benefit the industry if they cull the infected birds and we hope they will do it voluntarily to contain the virus,” Akhlaq said.

Pakistan Poultry Association Chairman Raza Mahmood Khursand said workers had started killing birds at the farm in Abbottabad, which had around 15,000 birds. The other farm has around 10,000 chickens.