The Min­istry of Health (MOH) says it has in­ten­si­fied its sur­veil­lance and test­ing ef­forts in re­sponse to grow­ing glob­al con­cerns over Avian in­fluen­za (bird flu) fol­low­ing rec­om­men­da­tions from the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO).

Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram, in a state­ment is­sued through the Min­istry’s Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment, con­firmed that while the WHO cur­rent­ly as­sess­es the risk to the gen­er­al pub­lic as low, the Health Min­istry re­mains vig­i­lant.

“As is cus­tom­ary with all virus­es of con­cern, the min­istry con­tin­ues to un­der­take sur­veil­lance and test­ing to de­tect any po­ten­tial cas­es and to proac­tive­ly pro­tect pub­lic health. Fo­cal points from the Min­istry of Health and the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries are in reg­u­lar com­mu­ni­ca­tion, and there is en­hanced vig­i­lance for both an­i­mal and hu­man sur­veil­lance for clus­ters of un­usu­al ill­ness­es in poul­try, live­stock, or per­sons in con­tact with these sources,” Paras­ram said.