Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Star power to combat virus

Special Correspondent

FOR A CAUSE: Actor Chippy inaugurates a seminar on Avian flu in the capital.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Cine actors have come forward to lend their image to the campaign to create awareness and allay fears about Avian flu. Actor Chippy inaugurated a seminar on Avian flu organised by the Kerala State Poultry Development Corporation here on Saturday. The participants left only after partaking of a sumptuous lunch consisting of dishes of chicken, egg and meat of Japanese quail.

The seminar got under way with a paper by Ashwin Kumar of Thiruvananthapuram Medical College in which he said that human beings contracted the disease from the birds rarely. Chicken meat and eggs are consumed only after cooking at high temperature. Even the disease-affected chicken can be consumed if cooked at a temperature of over 70 degrees Celsius. The virus cannot survive such high temperature, the paper said.

B.Ashok, Director of the Animal Husbandry Department, in his presidential address said the State Government tested 7,000 samples, but symptoms of avian flu were found in none. M. Suresh Kumar, MD of Poultry Development Corporation, said that nobody had contracted the disease by consuming meat or eggs of chicken.

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