With the spread of coronavirus, there seems to a scare among people with rumour being circulated on social media that chicken are infected by coronavirus, many people have stopped buying and consuming chicken. Due to rumour of coronavirus the sale of chicken and eggs has dropped and many restaurants have even slashed cooking chicken and eggs due to low demand.
Some stall owners in the city said that the sale of chicken has dropped in the last two weeks after the message went viral that coronavirus spreads through eating non-vegetarian dishes. Shahid, a chicken seller at New Market area said, “The sale of chicken has dropped in last few weeks after the outbreak of coronavirus in China. Due to social site messages people are afraid of eating chicken and eggs.” However, Shahid said that this is just rumour with little truth. He said, “We spent 10 to 12 hours daily with poultry animals and we are not contracted any infection.
If Coranavirus had to spread from Chicken then we would have been the first to get infected.”
The chicken seller said that the Government should create awareness about coronavirus as there is lots of rumour as some nuisance element is spreading viral messages about coronavirus.
He said that due to viral messages, as the sale of Chicken has gone down so as the prices. The Chicken is now available at Rs 110 to Rs 120 per kg. Shahid used to sell around 1.5 quintal of Chicken everyday before the outbreak of the virus, but now he is selling around 80 to 90 Kg per day.
Not only Chicken, but even eggs’ sale has dropped in past few days. KD Singh egg outlet near new market is selling 100 bags of carton earlier he used to sell 150 to 200 cartons. A carton has around 210 eggs.
Not only sale but even prices have gone down in past few weeks, but today the egg prices once again gone up.
Till Tuesday a carton of eggs used to cost Rs 850, but today it is available at Rs 900. Even homemakers too have stopped preparing chicken, eggs and other non-vegetarian foods.
Surbhi Verma a resident of Kanke Road said, “Earlier we used to chicken twice a week and eggs on breakfast every day, but after outbreak of Coranavirus we have stopped eating chicken replacing it from paneer or green leafy vegetables.
Eggs have been replaced with fruits.” Though reports of Coronavirus in India is just turn out to rumour both the centre and state government have issued necessary directives to tackle the viral disease after three confirmed Coronavirus cases in Kerala were found.
