India poultry industry hit by false virus claims

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India’s poultry industry is reeling after sales fell nearly 80 percent over false claims that chickens were carriers of the new coronavirus and could pass it to humans, officials said Friday.

Messages warning people to stop eating chicken because of the contagion have been widely shared on social media, including Facebook and WhatsApp, in recent weeks.

“People are not eating poultry at home. They are not going out to eat,” Gulrez Alam, secretary of the All India Poultry Breeders Association, told AFP.India has reported 31 cases of the virus that has killed more than 3,300 people and infected nearly 100,000 worldwide after it emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December.

AFP’s FactCheck service debunked one of the claims – shared thousands of times on different platforms – that said coronavirus has been discovered in broiler chickens in Mumbai. Nearly $1 billion in sales of birds and meat have been lost, Alam said citing initial industry estimates, and there are fears the situation could worsen.

 

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