Barbecued chicken still popular despite bird flu scare

As chicken meat slowly cooks over a smoke-belching barbeque at one of Karachi’s popular and crowded barbecue eateries, it is clear neither the owner nor its customers seem that worried about the most recent bird flu scare.

Earlier this month, health officials confirmed two new outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 virus at two poultry farms near Karachi, the country’s commercial capital and home to over 15 million inhabitants.

“It’s business as usual,” Ali Zaman, the chief superviser, who has been with the eatery since it started in 1988, told IRIN.

Then a small-time joint, it has since expanded and can now cater for up to 3,000 guests at a time.

“Do you think we’d be cooking so much poultry if people had stopped ordering chicken dishes?” he asked confidently, pointing to the sizzling grills nearby.

The restaurant, he said, had not cut down on the 300-350 kg of the chicken meat per day they get from their supplier, and Zaman is not convinced by suggestions that cooking boiled chicken over the stove is any safer than eating barbecued meat.

According to health experts, cooking poultry at or above 70 degrees centigrade so that absolutely no meat remains raw and red is a safe way of killing the H5N1 virus.

Many argue that chicken tikka and other forms of barbecue popular in Pakistan might not be as safe, as the meat is not always properly cooked or grilled - a contention Zaman is quick to dismiss.

“We use mineral water to wash the meat, then soak it in vinegar to further sanitise it, clear all the blood and then put it in ice water, after which it is put in a cold room after marinating it with the spices. The coals are hot and the meat gets cooked to over 80-100 degrees centigrade,” he said.

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Restaurant workers also wore gloves during the entire process of handling raw meat except when they were threading the meat onto the skewers and cooking it on the grill, he said.

Avian influenza has long been found amongst wild birds, on small-scale poultry farms and in live markets but it is only recently that highly pathogenic strains of the virus have so badly affected the country’s poultry sector.

Hundreds of thousands of chickens culled

Since the virus was first detected in Pakistan in March 2006, the authorities have culled hundreds of thousands of chickens in an effort to stem potential outbreaks, particularly in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where most of the country’s poultry industry is located.

In December 2007 the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the country’s first case of a human catching the virus: one young poultry worker died in the NWFP.

And yet in a country like Pakistan, where chicken accounts for up to 45 percent of all meat consumption, public perceptions of the risk factors are changing.

On 7 February, one Karachi caterer quoted by Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper complained that the real market facts were not being presented, and reported a 90 percent decline in chicken-related orders for parties and receptions.

Health warnings not taken seriously

Others, however, would disagree.

Not far from where Zaman works, forty-something Mohammad Farooq runs a small chicken shop, as well as a slaughtering service.~

Photo: Zofeen Ebrahim/IRIN

The fallout of bird flu on the country’s important poultry industry has yet to be truly measured

Running his blood-stained hands through his greased hair, he concedes that business has dropped off in recent days - despite the price of broiler chickens being cut by more than 30 percent.

Without gloves while handling live and dead chickens, Farooq does not take the warnings by health officials very seriously.

“My chickens are not sick and anyway God is there to protect me,” he said.

But Farah Moazzam, a young homemaker, is not taking any chances. “I’m not buying any chicken, just using what there is in the freezer,” she explained, adding, however, that she had friends who were stocking up on bird meat at its newly reduced price.

Meanwhile, General Secretary of Karachi Wholesalers’ Poultry Association Kamal Akhtar Siddiqi blamed certain “vested interest” for creating panic amongst the public.

He also held the media responsible for blowing the issue out of proportion, noting it was having an adverse effect on an important industry for the country and the livelihoods of millions.

According to WHO, bird flu has killed over 200 people in 12 countries since 2003, the vast majority in Asia.

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