All my sweat is going down the pit just like that — Farmer cries as Bird Flu hit Western North, over 5,000 birds killed

Western North region has recorded its first bird influenza outbreak at Kwarteng Farms in Bibiani.

About 5000 birds have been affected with hundreds dying hourly.

Mr. Augustine Kwarteng, the Municipal Agric officer speaking to Adehyie FM’s Kofi Gyabaah indicated that his outfit rushed to the farms after receiving a call that the birds were dying in an abnormal manner.

He noted that after a postmortem was conducted on the dead birds, it turned out they had been killed by influenza also known as bird flu.

“Unfortunately because of the outbreak there was nothing we could than kill all the remaining lives birds and bury them immediately to avoid a spread to other farms”, he pointed.

The Municipal NADMO Officer, Mr. Asante Agyapong who commended the owner of Kwarteng Farms for promptly alerting Municipal Agric Authorities also advised residents of the area not to allow the temptation of cooking any of the affected birds.

He was appalled that some person risked their lives by taking some affected birds home to cook, deceiving themselves that nothing would happen if the chicken is well cooked.

“How can you determine the bird has been well cooked?

“Even the one who has lost over GH200,000 over the death of the birds isn’t saying he's going to cook them and eat but has brought them to be killed and buried, why should anyone want to cook these birds?” he quizzes.

The owner of the farm, Mr. Samuel Kwarteng Mensah narrating how it occurred said, he saw the strange deaths last Monday.

According to him, samples were taken to Takoradi and Accra and it was confirmed that the deaths were caused by Influenza.

“So they came last night and announced to me it was bird flu and all the birds needed to be killed and buried, all my sweat is going into the pit just like that”, he lamented.

He said he derives his daily livelihood from the poultry farm he spent years and thousands of cedis to invest.

“I don’t know what to do and where am going from here, whether I can come back into this business or not depends on whether I can get some support from government,” he laments.