Fact-check: Has Pakistan detected its first case of bird flu?

Some social media users appear to believe the claim that Pakistan has confirmed its first case of the highly contagious bird flu in industrial poultry.

The claim is incorrect.

Claim

On February 23, the Economy of Pakistan, a verified Twitter account, wrote: “Bird Flu case confirmed in Pakistan. In 2004, Bird flu caused a loss of approximately $100 million to the poultry industry.”

The tweet has been viewed about 58,000 times and liked 776 times, at the time of writing. The user further alleged, in a follow-up tweet, that Geo Television had reported the news.

On February 15, a similar claim was shared by a Facebook user.

"Chickens have suddenly started to get a dangerous disease of bird flu," the user wrote, "The public should avoid eating chicken."

The post had been shared over 14,000 times, to date.

Fact

No known case of bird flu has been reported in Pakistan this year to date, confirmed the health ministry.

Sajid Hussain Shah, the spokesperson of the federal ministry of national health services regulations and coordination, told Geo Fact Check over the phone that no "case of bird flu has been detected in Pakistan, as per our knowledge."

"There has been no case of bird flu yet," he added.

Separately, Geo Television also confirmed that the screenshot circulating online, where it is being claimed that the channel reported the news, was "fake".

"This image has been circulating for many years," a senior employee of the organisation confirmed, “Geo did not run any such news."

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