Jordan: Limited spread of Newcastle chicken disease

The Jordanian ministries of health and agriculture asserted that news reports which spoke about the spread of the "Newcastle disease in the poultry farms in Jordan is too much exaggerated, and the average of casualties from this disease is within its natural frame."

The Jordanian Ministries of Health and Agriculture indicated that the Newcastle "epidemic disease" causes economic losses to poultry breeders because of the great increase in mortality. But it is not harmful to the health of the consumers because the infected poultry has no chance of reaching consumers due the short nursery period of the disease, ranging between 12 and 24 hours.

In a statement issued in Amman on Tuesday, the director of the livestock department, Dr. Mukhles al-Haddadin, said that what has been raised on the spread of the Newcastle disease in the poultry farms is not true, adding that the ministry did not receive information from farmers on the spread of an epidemic in the volume reported by the local media.

He hinted that there are individual cases of Newcastle disease in several farms in Jordan. "This is natural and happens in all the world's farms," Haddadin stated.

On Monday, the Jordanian Ministry of Agriculture had officially announced the spread of the infectious Newcastle disease in the Jordanian poultry farms.

In a statement the ministry said this epidemic resulted in the mortality of 20% of the poultry and this by its turn resulted in losses estimated so far at 2 million Jordanian dinars.

Meanwhile, the Jordanian daily al-Arab al-Youm said that the ministry had following the discovery of the disease notified all departments of agriculture in Jordan about it in order to intensify the efforts to preventing its spread.