Bird flu
September 21, 2011
An Indian government statement said late Tuesday that they received confirmed reports of the outbreak in two villages. These two villages in West Bengal were severely hit by the virus in previous years. Samples have tested positive for the H5 strain of avian influenza which is popularly known as bird flu.
Without giving numbers the statement said, all chickens would be culled within a three kilometre (nearly two miles) radius of the focal point of the infection. Eggs and chicken feed would also be destroyed to control the further spread of the disease.
Surveillance was stepped up in West Bengal, a state severely hit by bird flu outbreaks in the past. The federal government is pushing local authorities to ban the movement of poultry and its products and restricting access to the affected area.
UN and WHO warnings
The Indian outbreak of flu follows a warning three weeks ago by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation that avian flu was on the rise globally after a five-year decline. The FAO said a mutant strain of the H5N1 virus was spreading in Asia and outside the continent.
It is not known whether there was any link between the Indian outbreak and the mutant strain detected in China and Vietnam, for which no vaccine has yet been developed. It is also not clear if the latest outbreak in India is related to the new Asian strain.
If it spreads to humans, bird flu can cause fever, a cough, sore throat, pneumonia, respiratory disease and sometimes even death. In 2008, West Bengal carried out a massive cull of nearly four million birds to bring bird flu under control.
Bird flu first broke out in India in 2006 and millions of chickens and ducks have been culled since to contain the virus but it has resurfaced from time to time.
India did not give further details about the exact strain of flu found in the latest outbreak in West Bengal.
Author: Marina Joarder (AFP, Reuters)
Editor: Grahame Lucas