Consumption of chicken remains popular in towns around Kampala despite the bird flu outbreak. Ugandans seem bothered by the threats of the epidermic. On a visit to Kampala’s thriving suburbs proved that chicken sales is not about to drop as a result of the bird flu scare.
Roasted chicken takes the centre of attraction along roads in the evenings till the wee hours of the night. In Luzira, a surburb on the shores of L. Victoria still has active chicken barbecue. The same goes for Nsambya, Mutungo, Kamwokya, Kansanga, and Kireka.
People in the evenings throng the chicken stalls for a bite of roasted chicken thighs, breasts, fried drumsticks or roasted wings and gizzards. The thriving business seems not to be slowly done as chicken restaurants are still popular with clients.
According to medicinenet.com, a health website, bird flu symptoms in humans can vary and range from “typical” flu symptoms (fever, sore throat, muscle pain) to eye infections and pneumonia. The disease caused by the H5N1 virus is a particularly severe form of pneumonia that leads to life threatening viral pneumonia and multi-organ failure in many people who become infected.
Robert Sserwanga, a member of the Association of Uganda Poultry Industry, said the disease was in a central region that is home to over nine million commercial birds.
“An outbreak of a viral disease means massive depopulation of birds,” he said.
Vincent Ssempijja, the Ugandan agriculture minister, said specimens taken from white-winged birds that died en masse on Lake Victoria shores in Lutembe, Wakiso District, “unfortunately have turned positive [for] the very serious disease; the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI)”.
His permanent secretary, Diana Atwine, said there had been massive deaths of migratory birds at the Lutembe beach due to avian flu and additional cases had been detected 10 days later in ducks and chickens in Masaka District.
“There is a danger, although it isn’t a big risk, that if the disease crosses to human beings, it will give us a big headache,” she said.
Rwanda and Kenya have banned the importation of Ugandan poultry after the outbreak was confirmed on Sunday evening.
