India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

Tamil Nadu is another state in India, South India.

Bird Flu scare in Tamil Nadu ?

1/24/2008

Poultry owners in Kuchipalayam village in Tamil Nadu are living in fear. With more than 100 chickens dying mysteriously over the past few days, there are worries that the Bird Flu that devastated West Bengal has entered their state too. The government's claims that all precautions are in place, have not done much to reassure them.

Over 100 chicken die in Salem district

"Many chicken have been dying recently. With the Bird Flu in West Bengal, we are all very scared," admitted poultry farm owner in Kuchipalayam, P Chinnaswami.

Shockingly, though the state government has said the poultry deaths are being taken seriously not one blood sample has been sent to the specialised testing labs in Bhopal, raising many eyebrows. Despite the fears and with no tests being done, the state government has insisted there is no reason to worry.

Tamil Nadu Health Minister said, "We are taking all precautions" - but belying the state administration's tall claims that those working closely with poultry have been provided with adequate protective gear, TIMES NOW found the ground reality in villages like Namakkal spoke otherwise.

And with over 100 poultry deaths already reported from Tamil Nadu, panic has set in in these areas that this phenomenon will only continue.

http://www.timesnow.tv/Newsdtls.aspx?NewsID=5612

[ATTACH]2278[/ATTACH]

More from Tamil Nadu

Dead chicken found in a pool

Thursday January 24 2008

Express News Service


PERIYAKULAM: About 2,000 dead broilers were found floating in a highly decomposed state in a pool at Vellakaradu near Devadanapatti in Theni district causing panic and the villagers fear that the birds might have died due to avian flu.

The Vellakaradu pool is located near Kamatchi Amman temple along Devadanapatti - Pullakkapatti Road.

The water in the pool is stagnant and dirty. Dead fowls were found floating in the pool and the whole area was reeking with the stench of rotten flesh.

Many people in the area do not know how the birds landed in the pool. But they suspect that the fowls may have died of bird flu.

They also feel that the poultry farm owners in the area may have disposed the birds to avoid being questioned by authorities.

The people have requested the authorities to remove these birds from the pool and clean it or refill the water.

In the meanwhile, agricultural workers are not reporting for work fearing that they may become victims of avian flu.

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IET20080124044008&Page=T&Title=Southern+News+%2D+Tamil+Nadu&Topic=0

[Malcolm]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

There cannot be a worse place for bird flu to newly establish itself than West Bengal, India and Bangladesh.


India and world population density maps at these links. I don't know how
to post images:

http://cee45q.stanford.edu/2003/briefing_book/india.html#s2.2

http://www.mapsofindia.com/census2001/population/population%20map%20of%20india-2001.jpg

Note that West Bengal is one of the highest population areas in India.

http://www.nationsonline.org/maps/gppd-12in.jpg

Bangladesh has around 150 million people living there. The population density is around a thousand people every square kilometre.

[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

http://pib.nic.in/archieve/others/2008/jan/r20080124022.pdf

OVER 6.6 LAKH BIRDS CULLED; 583 RAPID RESPONSE TEAMS IN FIELD

As per latest information received, a cumulative mortality of 1,18,068 poultry birds has been
reported from West Bengal, of which 1865 birds died on 23.01.2008 in Murshidabad district. This
number stood at 1,16,203 till yesterday.
On 23.01.2008, 468 Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) were deployed for culling and surveillance
operations as per details below:
Districts Birbhum Dakshin
Dinajpur
Murshida
-bad
Nadia Burdwan Bankura Total
No. of RRTs 145 9 81 197 131 20 583
Yesterday, 468 RRTs were engaged in operations.
Latest position of culling and destruction of eggs & feed carried out till 23.01.2008 is
given below:

Districts Poultry culled (No.) Eggs destroyed (No.) Feed destroyed (Kg.)

Till
22.01.08
On
23.01.0
8
Cumulativ
e
Till
22.01.0
8
On
23.01.0
8
Cumulativ
e
Till
22.01.08
On
23.01.0
8
Cumula
tive
Birbhum 1,81,427 85,664 2,67,091 32,298 13,083 45,381 3229 1968 5197
Dakshin
Dinajpur
79,437 - 79,437 66,432 - 66,432 3181 - 3181
Murshidabad
47,983 40,628 88,611 831 1,460 2,291 11 274 285
Nadia 28,853 41,215 70,068 1,102 0 1,102 - - -
Burdwan 76,097 78,707 1,54,804 4,495 12,639 17,134 1863 350 2213
Bankura 800 4822 5622 121 719 840 - 3 3

Total 4,14,597 2,51,03
6
6,65,633 1,05,27
9
27,901 1,33,180 8284 2595 10,879

MP:CP:birdflu(24.1.2008)

[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

Each day the official reports have less information about testing.

[Malcolm]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

Numbers are written differently in India. They do not have a word for MILLION.


There are two terms in particular that are worth discussing: lakh
and crore. A lakh is one hundred thousand (100,000), a crore is ten
million (10,000,000). The South Asian numbering system progresses as
follows: ten (das), hundred (sau), thousand (hejar in Hindi, hezar
in Urdu), one hundred thousand (lakh) and ten million (crore).
Commas are usually placed to show the number of lakhs and crores, so
one lakh is written 1,00,000 and one crore is written 1,00,00,000.

http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/57179.html

[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

West Bengal Says Bird Flu Outbreak Under Control (Lead)

Thursday 24th of January 2008
West Bengal authorities said Thursday the bird flu outbreak was under control, after days of panic, but added it would take four-five days to cull the over two million birds in the affected areas.

'The outbreak is under control. There is no report of the disease spreading to new areas,' Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy said after meeting Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Animal Husbandry Minister Anisur Rahaman.

'The culling operation will be completed in Burdwan, Bankura and South Dinajpur districts by Thursday. We need to step up our operation in Murshidabad and Birbhum. It will take another four-five days to complete our task,' Roy added.

Roy allayed fears of the virus reaching Kolkata in the wake of reports of outbreak in Hooghly, only 19 km from the city. 'There is no threat to Kolkata. We are keeping a close watch on the situation.'

The chief minister directed Roy to ensure the disease did not envelop Kolkata. All entry points to the city have been sealed to prevent the entry of affected birds.

The deadly bird flu has led to the slaughter of over 450,000 birds in West Bengal so far even as it spread to Dinhata in Cooch Behar district in the north and Balagarh in Hooghly district, affecting nine of the total 19 districts.

'So far 34 blocks and four municipal areas have been hit by the disease,' minister Rahman said. 'From 640 culling teams Wednesday, the number was increased to 750 Thursday.'

Meanwhile, culling id set to commence in Malda, where the outbreak was confirmed three days back, district magistrate C.R. Das told IANS.

Reeling under the impact of the virus, the state's poultry industry said it had lost over Rs.1 billion ($25 million) in the past fortnight.

'Culling is slow and ham-handed. We are suffering because of that. The police are harassing us by intercepting our consignments and demanding bribes while the adverse campaign has affected the business,' West Bengal Poultry Welfare Association president Sheikh Nazrul Islam told IANS.

'In rural areas the government had given a woman member of each family 10 hens. Now when it is demanding them back for culling, the families are not forthcoming,' he said.

'We are impoverished. We have to start from the scratch now,' said Islam. Many states have banned the import of chicken from West Bengal.

In the villages, women folk who saw better days from rearing backyard poultry are devastated.

'How will we live now? All the 20 hens and ducks I had were slaughtered. We were heavily dependent on the earning from selling eggs,' said a woman from Mangolkot in Burdwan district, about 200 km from here.

The government has sanctioned Rs.50 million to battle the flu while the central government has disbursed Rs.35 million. The government has sought Rs.80.25 million more.

Farmers were being given tokens at culling sites and asked to contact their panchayat or village block offices for compensation. The payment is Rs.40 for a country chicken, Rs.30 for a broiler and Rs.10 for a chick.

Many villagers, however, are unhappy with the compensation. The nine districts now in the grip of the epidemic are Birbhum, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Nadia, Burdwan, Bankura, Malda, Hooghly and Cooch Behar.

The H5N1 virus causes a type of influenza in birds that is highly contagious. It does not usually infect people unless they come in close contact with infected birds or contaminated surfaces.

http://newspostindia.com/report-33091

[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

West Bengal Says Bird Flu Outbreak Under Control (Lead)

'The outbreak is under control. There is no report of the disease spreading to new areas,' Home Secretary Prasad Ranjan Roy said after meeting Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Animal Husbandry Minister Anisur Rahaman.


http://newspostindia.com/report-33091

The are no reports of the disease spreading because there is no testing of dead birds.

[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

<TABLE id=table32 height=75 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=topStory2Head vAlign=top colSpan=3><TABLE id=table195 height=66 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" align=left bgColor=#ffffff background=images/topStoryBg.gif border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=topStory2Head>Flu threat looms large over Indian city
Kolkata: 53 minutes ago </TD><TD vAlign=top align=left width=80><SCRIPT src="ta_tooltip.js" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT></TD><TD width=10></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><!--<tr> <td width="10" background="images/topStoryBg.gif" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> </td> <td class=topStory2Head height="66" background="images/topStoryBg.gif" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
: </td> <td width="13" background="images/topStoryBg.gif" bgcolor="#FFFFFF"> </td> </tr>--><TR><TD width=10 bgColor=#ffffff> </TD><TD class=fullStoryTxt vAlign=top align=left bgColor=#ffffff><TABLE align=left><TBODY><TR><TD></TD></TR><TR></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Authorities patrolled poultry markets in Kolkata to try to stop bird flu spreading to one of India's largest cities as fears grew the outbreak of the disease in eastern India was out of control.
Bird flu has spread to nine of West Bengal's 19 districts and there were reports of more bird deaths in another five districts in the state of 80 million people.
"The virus is most likely to spread to other areas within the infected zones and nearby districts, but we are now trying to stop it from hitting Kolkata," said Surjya Kanta Mishra, the state's health minister.
The H5N1 bird flu virus has been confirmed in two districts so far. Authorities have not confirmed H5N1 in other districts but say it is likely to be the same strain.
The World Health Organisation has said it was India's most serious outbreak since the strain was first detected in the country in 2006. On Thursday, a 30-year-old Indonesian man who had tested positive for bird flu died, and the virus has also resurfaced in Europe.
Indonesia has had the most fatalities from bird flu of any country, with the toll currently at 98 people dead.
Thailand said on Thursday the strain was confirmed in poultry in a northern province, while Bangladesh has been struggling to contain an outbreak that has affected more than two dozen districts. West Bengal borders Bangladesh.
Scientists fear the strain could mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person, leading to a pandemic that could kill millions around the globe.
Authorities found avian influenza in dead bird samples from Hooghly district, a little more than an hour's drive from the crowded West Bengal capital, Kolkata.
More than five million people live in Kolkata, a city dotted with rows of large houses, crumbling colonial buildings, glittering glass offices and congested slums.
Hundreds of health officials searched markets in the city's narrow lanes, looking for sick birds smuggled in from infected districts.
Health officials were also checking birds at the biggest poultry farm in the state near Kolkata.
"A strict surveillance has been put in place and we are checking every single truck coming into the city," said Anisur Rahaman, the state's animal resources minister. "We are making every effort to save the city from the virus."-Reuters

http://www.tradearabia.com/news/newsdetails.asp?Sn=INTNEWS&artid=137743

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

Madhya Pradesh sounds alert for bird flu

Bhopal: The Madhya Pradesh government on Thursday sounded alert in the state in view of bird flu epidemic in West Bengal even though no case of the deadly virus has been reported here.

There are no cases of bird flu in Madhya Pradesh but instructions have been given to all the district chiefs and departmental officers to remain alert in view of the epidemic in West Bengal, an official statement said.

Constant vigil is being maintained on the dealers who import poultry from other states and the water reservoirs, which are visited by migratory birds, it said.

Last week, 8,799 samples were collected from across the state and sent to High Security Animal Diseases Research Laboratory here. But no traces of bird flu were found.

The officers have also been instructed to take prompt action in case they get report of large-scale and sudden death of birds anywhere in the state.

http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1204702

[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

Bird flu knocks on Kolkata’s door
merinews network, 24 January 2008, Thursday <!-- AddThis Bookmark Button BEGIN--><SCRIPT type=text/javascript> addthis_url = location.href; addthis_title = document.title; addthis_pub = 'greenpeace'; </SCRIPT><SCRIPT src="http://s7.addthis.com/js/addthis_widget.php?v=12" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT> <!-- AddThis Bookmark Button END -->

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The deadly H5N1 virus has arrived at Kolkata’s doorstep with avian flu confirmed in Hooghly. The virus has affected 34 blocks and four municipal areas in nine districts, informed animal resource development minister (ARDM) Anisur Rahman.
<!-- article rating --><SCRIPT src="/js/article/ArticleRating.js" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT></INPUT></INPUT></INPUT></INPUT></INPUT></INPUT></INPUT><!-- Ad1 --><SCRIPT type=text/javascript><!--google_ad_client = "pub-9372192619832074";//300*250google_ad_slot = "4380496033";google_ad_width = 300;google_ad_height = 250;//--></SCRIPT><SCRIPT src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT><!-- In focus --><!-- Buzz Of Week --><!-- Photo Pic of Day --><LINK href="/mnc/css/layout.css" type=text/css rel=stylesheet>
<!-- End Article description Right -->THE DEADLY H5N1 virus in Bengal is knocking at Kolkata’s door. Avian flu was confirmed almost on Kolkata’s border in Hooghly district and in Coochbehar in North Bengal late Wednesday (Jan 24). Roads to Kolkata are being monitored to prevent transportation of chicken and eggs from the affected areas.

The number of districts affected by avian flu now stands at nine. Samples sent from Gopalpur village in Balagarh, Hooghly, and Jaridharala village in Dinhata, Coochbehar to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal tested positive.

Till now the virus has affected 34 blocks and four municipal areas in nine districts, animal resource development minister (ARDM) Anisur Rahman told the city media.

There is growing resentment among poultry owners who are not getting the compensation. The minister said coupons were distributed among those who have lost poultry. The coupons could be changed for money from respective panchayat offices. The minister said he would appeal to New Delhi to increase the compensation amount. The current compensation is in keeping with norms set up by the Centre.

Rainfall in eight of the bird-flu affected districts of Bengal disrupted culling operations. Unseasonal rain since Wednesday has hampered culling operations in Bankura, Burdwan, Birbhum, Hooghly, Nadia, South Dinajpur, Murshibadbad and Coochbehar districts. The government is working on a revised culling target.

By Tuesday nightfall 414,000 birds had been culled in Birbhum, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Nadia, Burdwan, and Bankura. In South Dinajpur the culling target has been met with 80,000 birds slaughtered.

The number of culling teams has been raised from 476 to 640. To create awareness among rural folk all-party meetings are being organised in flu-affected districts.

Meanwhile, officials from the US and Japanese consulates met animal resource secretary Dilip Chakraborty on Wednesday for details of the bird flu. Poultry products from Bengal are exported to the two countries, the minister told reporters.

http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=129672

[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

Indian battles bird flu, UN sounds alarm over Bangladesh

<!-- END HEADLINE --><!-- BEGIN STORY BODY -->by Sailendra Sil 17 minutes ago


Bodies of chickens were left to rot Thursday in India as the country battled its worst bird flu outbreak while a UN agency warned the virus also posed a health threat in neighbouring Bangladesh.
The disease has already spread to over half of India's West Bengal state whose government called the outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu a "crisis."
Drenching rain that turned rural dirt roads in West Bengal into muddy rivers forced a temporary halt to culling Thursday, dealing another setback to the fight against India's third and by far its worse bird flu outbreak.
Later when the rains stopped, the killing of birds resumed but villagers staged protests as culling teams refused to bury dead poultry.
"They're leaving the dead poultry on farms and along roads," said villager Munirul Sheikh in Ganganagar, 200 kilometres (120 miles) north of Kolkata.
"Dozens of dead chickens are rotting in farms," he said.
"We're not instructed to pick up the dead chickens. Villagers can bury them," said Kashinath Majumdar, a government official heading a culling team.
West Bengal animal resources minister Anisur Rahaman, who has already expressed fears the disease would spread to humans, called the failure to bury the dead chickens "a communication gap."
"I will ask the culling teams to bury the dead chickens," he said. People typically catch bird flu by coming into direct contact with infected poultry.
The confusion over how to deal with the dead chickens in the state of 80 million people came as the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that Bangladesh needed "house-to-house surveillance" to combat bird flu there.
"The situation has worsened in the past week compared to the first few months of the outbreak" of the H5N1 virus that began last February, FAO's Bangladesh chief Ad Spijkers told AFP.
"It's posing a danger to public health," Spijkers said in Dhaka, capital of impoverished Bangladesh where Indian officials believe India's H5N1 avian flu outbreak originated.
Aid "donors are going to meet with the government very soon to discuss comprehensive measures to fight the disease. It's posing a danger to public health," he said.
Spijkers' statement came amid a rise in reports of the disease in Bangladesh's southern, central and northern districts and border forces were put on high alert to stop poultry entering from West Bengal.
Bangladesh authorities insist the disease remains contained in the impoverished nation of 144 million people but experts differ, saying the situation is far worse and that farmers are holding back from reporting cases.
Meanwhile in India's West Bengal, doctors and veterinarians from neighbouring states were arriving in Kolkata to join the culling teams.
"Altogether 934 culling teams are involved in slaughtering poultry," said minister Rahaman, adding teams had killed nearly 700,000 out of 2.2 million chickens slated to be culled.

"The remaining will be culled in the next three to four days," he said.
Experts fear a pandemic if the H5N1 strain mutates into a form easily transmissible between humans.
Neither Bangladesh nor India has so far had any human cases of bird flu. But Rahaman said he feared the disease would spread to humans with hundreds of people reporting flu symptoms and children "playing with chickens."
However, shops and market stalls that previously were selling chicken were now selling vegetables in affected areas, witnesses reported.
Culling teams initially faced resistance from locals but villagers started handing over their poultry after the government began giving out immediate compensation for the dead birds.
But farmers in the poverty-stricken state still feared financial hardship.
"We've never heard of bird flu, but it's destroyed the village's economy, said poultry farmer Safirul Islam. Meanwhile in Indonesia, a 30-year-old man has died of bird flu, the government said Thursday, bringing the toll to 98 in the nation worst hit by the H5N1 virus.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080124/wl_sthasia_afp/healthfluindiabangladesh&printer=1;_ylt=AgxxTliq0qY10h_kxmFsmDzuOrgF

[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

India fears H5N1 bird flu outbreak in Colcata

Published: Thursday 24 January 2008 11:55 UTC
Last updated: Thursday 24 January 2008 16:34 UTC

Kolkata - The Indian government fears a major outbreak of avian influenza in the city of Colcata. Dead birds found relatively close to the city tested positive for the H5N1 variant of the virus, which can be lethal to humans.

Bird flu has broken out in nine of the 19 districts of the federal state of West Bengal, in which Colcata is located. In at least two of these districts, the outbreak was caused by the H5N1 variant.

The Indian authorities have initiated a mass slaughter of the birds, but it is reportedly not going fast enough. At least two million birds will have to be killed.

Read more: http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/080103-bird-flu-vaccine target=_blank>Breakthrough in effective bird flu vaccine

http://www.radionetherlands.nl/news/international/5613619/India-fears-H5N1-bird-flu-outbreak-in-Colcata

[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

Bird flu awareness campaign to be launched on radio, TV




New Delhi, Jan 24 : With the deadly [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]bird [COLOR=blue! important]flu [/color][COLOR=blue! important]virus[/color][/color][/color] spreading to more areas in West Bengal, a worried central government Thursday said awareness campaigns about the disease would be run in the electronic and [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]print [COLOR=blue! important]media[/color][/color][/color]. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has expressed concern over the spread of the disease.
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Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said here Thursday that the prime minister had called for a widespread campaign be launched against the disease across the country.

"I have been directed by the prime minister to give widespread publicity to the bird flu situation," Dasmunsi told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

"We are launching a campaign via All India Radio as many villages have no access to television," the minister added.

A [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]health[/color][/color] ministry official said: "The campaign includes broadcast of spots on private and government owned FM channels in West Bengal. The spots would be broadcast five to six times before and between popular programmes and the national news during morning and late evening hours."

The states to be covered include Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Orissa, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura, Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

The official Doordarshan television centres in Patna, Ranchi, Kolkata and Guwahati would start telecasting bird flu campaigns.

Though bird flu was not on the cabinet's agenda, the issue was discussed at length. Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar gave a detailed account of the situation in West Bengal, where nine districts have been affected by avian influenza.

Dasmunsi blamed the state government for its "lethargy" in reporting the bird flu situation.

"There was a little delay in culling the birds. The bird flu started Jan 4 in some parts of West Bengal but the attention of the central government was drawn only on Jan 11," the minister said.

Dasmunsi said that a "timely joint initiative (by the centre and the state) could have been launched earlier to control it".

India confirmed Jan 15 the outbreak of bird flu after [COLOR=blue! important][COLOR=blue! important]laboratory [COLOR=blue! important]tests[/color][/color][/color] found the H5N1 strains in the dead poultry in Birbhum and South Dinajpur districts of West Bengal.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already expressed concern over the situation in West Bengal and termed it as "serious".

Of over 2.1 million poultry earmarked for culling in the nine districts, only 430,000 have been slaughtered so far - nine days after the outbreak was declared.

Dasmunsi said the West Bengal chief secretary was in touch with the agriculture ministry on a day-to-day basis.

The state has informed the centre that it has adequate medicines and equipment to handle the situation, Dasmunsi said. "The culling operation is on, and if required the centre would provide all necessary help to West Bengal."
<!-- google_ad_section_end -->--- IANS

http://www.newkerala.com/one.php?action=fullnews&id=16736

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[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=vilotbiggest colSpan=2>Culling operations speeded up in West Bengal</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=blackbold></TD></TR><TR><TD class=blacktextgen>Thursday, 24 January , 2008, 22:44</TD></TR><TR><TD height=24></TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top align=left width="100%"></TD></TR><TR><TD height=32></TD></TR><TR><TD class=blacktext align=left>
New Delhi: Poultry death due to the dreaded bird flu reached over 1.18 lakh in West Bengal today as the culling operations were speeded up with the teams fanning out to three more districts. <!-- AdTag -->
The culling operations have started in Malda, Cooch Behar and Hooghly districts of the state today, Union Animal Husbandry Commissioner S K Bandhopadhyay said here.
The total number of poultry culled reached 6,65,633, he said, adding the virus was not detected in any fresh area today.
When asked about whether there is any proposal to increase the compensation, Bandhopadhyay said, "There is nothing on paper.?
The Commissioner said that it would take six-to-seven days to complete the culling operations, provided the virus does not spread to new areas. The number of birds to be culled as per the latest estimate is 24 lakhs.
He said the West Bengal government would increase the number of teams in Murshidabad districts.
The source of the virus has not been detected yet, he said, adding Bhutan has banned the poultry imports from India. Meanwhile, allaying fears of any human cases, the Union Health Ministry said persons having Upper Respiratory Infection or fever were being monitored. Health care facilities have been identified with isolation ward and critical health care facilities for management of human cases of Avian Influenza.
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http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14594476

[HenryN]

Re: India - Bird Flu in Poultry/Animals Jan 24+

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=1 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #dcdcdc 1px solid; BORDER-TOP: #dcdcdc 1px solid; BORDER-LEFT: #dcdcdc 1px solid; BORDER-BOTTOM: #dcdcdc 1px solid"></TD></TR><TR><TD style="PADDING-TOP: 10px"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080039403&ch=1/24/2008%2010:27:00%20PM<!--Body Start-->
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</TD><TD vAlign=top align=left>Monideepa Banerjie

Thursday, January 24, 2008 (Kolkata)

The culling teams in Hooghly district are having a hard time. They are going from door to door in search of chicken, getting into arguments with villagers and getting nowhere.

Pigeon owner Ripon Das has a coop full of pigeons, which he is determined not to part with.

''I will not let them kill the pigeons. I have had them for a long time as pets. I cannot give them away with my own hands to be killed,'' said Ripon Das, Pigeon owner.

But the culling teams are not losing heart. In fact, at Sherpur village, they actually demonstrated that their heart was in the right place.

In a bid to win over people who must lose their chicken, the culling teams are making compromises.

They are counting as live chicken that have died or are almost dead in the coops in the homes of the villagers and they are paying compensation for them.

At another bird owner Ashoka Das's home, for instance, there were two dead chicken in the coop along with three live ones.

While calculating compensation, the cullers slipped in compensation for the dead chicken as well. So Ashoka got paid for five chicken and not just the three that were culled.
''We are paying people who are poor a little extra. It is not being given to everybody but yes we are making exceptions. These people are very poor we know that,'' said Swapan Mallick, Chicken culler

Culling is cruel business, and the cullers know they are hitting people where it hurts in their hearts and in their pockets. So, even if the compensation bill is a little inflated, they would rather cull with kindness.





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