FG says no vaccination as poultry farmers lose 3.4m birds to bird flu

The Federal Government says Nigeria is not changing its “no vaccination” policy approach to tackling Avian Influenza.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mahmood Abubakar, said this at a press conference in Abuja Thursday.

Farmers had called on the government to change the policy following the continued outbreak of bird flu that led to the collapse of many farms in the country.

Since 2017, Nigeria has reportedly recorded 476 bird flu outbreaks with about 3.4 million birds lost.

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Abubakar said the decision was taken after due consideration of scientific and socio-economic evidences available to the ministerial committee on merits and demerits of vaccination or no vaccination and best global practices.

The minister said the committee recommended the ‘no vaccination’ policy for now.

Also speaking, Director,  Veterinary and Pest Control Services at the ministry, Columba Vakuru said the no vaccination policy would save the country money that would be used to import vaccine.

“We’ll also have demonstrated that we’re capable of regulating our poultry industry to the level that we’ll take stringent measures. 

“The vaccine is not going to come free. Unfortunately for us, we’ve not started producing the vaccine within the country”, stated.