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Chicken flies again on Indian air menus despite bird flu
3/10/2006
NEW DELHI, Mar 9 (AFP): Chicken and eggs have made a comeback on Indian airline flights after being pulled from menus nearly three weeks ago when India reported its first outbreak of bird flu among poultry.
India's biggest private domestic carrier, Jet Airways, said it resumed serving chicken and eggs Thursday after discontinuing them "as a precautionary measure" following the detection of the H5N1 strain of the virus in western India.
"Jet Airways has taken this step following a directive from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare," the airline said in a statement.
State-owned domestic carrier Indian and other Indian airlines also said they had put chicken back on board.
There have been no new reports of avian influenza among chickens in India since the first outbreak on February 18 in an area straddling western Maharashtra and Gujarat states.
Doctors tested close to 100 people for the virus but the results were negative.
The government has been urging people to eat chicken again and published advertisements in newspapers assuring consumers that properly cooked poultry products are safe to eat.
Chicken is a staple meat for Indians as pork and beef are often avoided due to religious beliefs. But after detection of the flu virus, chicken and egg sales plummeted, badly hurting the poultry industry.
At one point, the army and government offices took chicken off their menus along with many restaurants but they now are serving it again.
Some restaurants, however, say diners are still shunning chicken.
"The demand for chicken... has shown only marginal improvement. It may take quite some time before poultry consumption levels are back to pre-scare days," Dilip Shekhawat, manager of a popular New Delhi restaurant, told the Asian Age.
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