With the authorities receiving over 200 telephone calls an hour reporting sightings of dead birds, the Maltese are starting to panic even though the government has repeatedly said there is nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately, as a nation we do have a tendency to exaggerate matters, and the fear of a bird flu outbreak in Malta has provided another reason for doing so. But this should not be the case.

The government and other authorities have consistently repeated that there is no cause for alarm and that every precaution is being taken in the event that an outbreak becomes a reality.

Regular press conferences, and the distribution of information material on influenza and bird flu to every household, are serving to keep the public informed as much as possible. As things are at the moment, there is absolutely no reason to be concerned, let alone panic.

A simulation exercise carried out last Friday was intended to test the waters and check the response time when, and if, bird flu is detected in Malta. The authorities, once again, both before and after the exercise, stressed there is nothing to be worried about. The exercise was simply a way of testing the contingency plans that have been meticulously drawn up.

Yet in spite of every attempt to allay fears, the opposite has occurred. People are clearly starting to become more apprehensive.

As so often happens, if the government had done nothing about the situation, it would have been accused of ignoring the problem. However, when the simulation exercise was announced and carried out, the public seemed to worry even more, probably assuming – incorrectly – that there must be something wrong if the government felt the need to carry out such an exercise.

The authorities are, however, doing well to respond to every call received.

This shows that they are not leaving anything to chance and every bird death is taken seriously. So much so, that when two dead birds were found on a ship at the Freeport on Sunday, a plan of action was immediately implemented. Within minutes the area was sealed off and those workers who may have come into contact with the birds – then suspected to have died of the avian flu virus – were taken into quarantine and decontaminated.

The necessary tests on the dead birds were carried out and in just 12 hours the results – which proved negative – were made public.

One question that can be raised at this point is not whether we are well-prepared to deal with one “suspect event” – as in the case last Sunday at the Freeport – but whether we are prepared to deal with more than one case. The authorities would do well to consider the possibility of having to deal with more than one case simultaneously – once news breaks out of one “possibility”, there are bound to be others.

But, to go back to our original argument, there is no cause for alarm as yet, even though many people are taking precautions. Butchers have been reported as saying that sales of poultry products have dropped; something similar happened with beef products when there were fears of mad cow disease. The authorities, once again, have given assurances that locally-processed chickens pose no threat to human health.

The important thing in all this is that, as a nation and as individuals, we must not exaggerate matters. We will cross the bridge when we come to it.

Of course, we must be prepared for any eventuality, and the recent exercises are part of a contingency plan just in case bird flu is detected in Malta and, God forbid, the virus mutates into a strain that can be transferred between humans.

Let us hope and pray we will never get to that bridge.