India: It?s Spreading

[Bruce]

No BF in INDIA no need to panic, govt. mistaken

No need to panic, govt. mistaken

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...46,curpg-1.cms
PUNE: The death of thousands of birds in Nandurbar district is not due to bird flu, as declared by the state government, according to Anuradha Desai, chairperson of the National Egg Co-ordination Committee and Venkateshwara Hatcheries Private Ltd (VHPL), the country's largest poultry company.

"It is some mistake. I am surprised and shocked at how the government has declared that it is bird flu on the basis of just one report," Desai said.

Speaking to TOI, Desai said there has not been a single case of bird flu at the Poultry Diagnostic and Research Centre, a sister concern of Venkateshwara Hatcheries.

According to her, Union agricultural minister Sharad Pawar has agreed for samples to be sent to another laboratory in India and one abroad for a second opinion. Desai said the deaths are more likely due to a seasonal disease called Ranikhet or Newcastle, which usually occurs at the onset of summer. "There's no need for alarm as it is a routine situation", she said.

Moreover, the poultry farmers in the region, where maximum deaths occurred, neither discarded the birds in time nor vaccinated them against Ranikhet, she said.

"In this case, they kept some of the birds for 100 weeks because the prices of eggs were good. Therefore, the effect of the vaccination, which usually lasts for 72-weeks, would have run out," Desai said.

[Bruce]

Re: INDIA Bird flu confirmed (& rumors of humans) 18.2.06

<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td class="articleheader">Delhi has a familiar disease



</td></tr><tr><td class="articleauthor">RASHEED KIDWAI</td></tr><tr><td class="story" align="left">

Bhopal, Feb. 18: Rapiddissemination of information – that’s the cornerstone of the fight against any contagion, but not if Delhi can help it.

The High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal, the only one in Asia equipped to deal with bird flu, developed cold feet for a few hours this evening after confirming that the deadly virus has arrived in India.

“Yes, it is bird flu,” an official confirmed in the afternoon. Hours later, however, he was less sure: “It was a preliminary report and we need to confirm it.”

The official had been taking calls from across the country. However, sources in Delhi said a few calls from the capital made the officials of the lab clam up.

The sources said some decision-makers in Delhi were upset with the laboratory for creating a “scare”. They feared that businesses such as poultry, tourism and aviation would be hit and conveyed their displeasure to the lab.


By night, however, an official at the lab again confirmed that some samples had tested positive. “But there is no need to panic,” he added.

http://www.telegraphindia.com/106021...ry_5866151.asp






</td></tr></tbody></table>

[viamede]

First suspected human death from bird flu in India

First suspected human death from bird flu in India
Sun Feb 19, 2006 10:22 AM IST

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - A man has died of suspected bird flu in western India, a top official said on Sunday, a day after India reported its first bird flu infections in poultry.

"A poultry farm owner died on Friday in Surat district. Local tests have confirmed bird flu but we have sent samples to the national laboratory. A final report is awaited," Vatsala Vasudev, the top district administrator of Surat in western Gujarat state, told Reuters.

Gujarat is adjacent to Maharashtra state, where 50,000 birds died in past days and tests on some of the fowl proved positive for the H5N1 avian flu virus.

The dead man, Ganesh Sonarkar, 27, was a resident of Nandurbar district of Maharashtra state, Vasudev said. She did not elaborate why Sonarkar had travelled to Surat.

"An alert has been sounded across Gujarat following the outbreak," the official said.
A local health official in Surat, O.P. Tiwari, said Sonarkar was admitted to a hospital in the town about 10 days ago and was "provisionally diagnosed with bird flu".

"He died on Friday," Tiwari said.

Adding to the sense of crisis, blood samples of eight people have also been sent for testing to a virology laboratory in the western city of Pune. Four other people, including three children, were under observation. It was not clear if Sonarkar was among the eight being tested.

"We sent blood samples of these people who are associated with poultry because they had cold and cough," Vijay Satbir Singh, Maharashtra's top health official, told Reuters.

"We want to make sure they don't have any kind of flu."

Health workers in Maharashtra began culling about 300,000 chickens and vaccinating birds on Sunday.

Maharashtra, India's richest and most industrialised state, has hundreds of poultry farms and officials say there are around 900,000 fowl in Nandurbar alone.

T.P. Doke, the state's director of health services, said health workers were also distributing protective clothing, masks and preventive drugs to poultry workers.

The H5N1 virus is known to have infected 171 people worldwide since late 2003, killing 93 of them. Two hundred million birds across Asia, parts of the Middle East, Europe and Africa have died of the virus or been culled.

So far most victims of bird flu have had direct or indirect contact with chickens, but there are fears the virus might mutate into a strain easily passed among people, causing a pandemic in which millions could die.



http://in.today.reuters.com/news/new...a-237323-2.xml

[viamede]

First suspected human death from bird flu in India

First suspected human death from bird flu in India
Sun Feb 19, 2006 10:22 AM IST

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - A man has died of suspected bird flu in western India, a top official said on Sunday, a day after India reported its first bird flu infections in poultry.

"A poultry farm owner died on Friday in Surat district. Local tests have confirmed bird flu but we have sent samples to the national laboratory. A final report is awaited," Vatsala Vasudev, the top district administrator of Surat in western Gujarat state, told Reuters.

Gujarat is adjacent to Maharashtra state, where 50,000 birds died in past days and tests on some of the fowl proved positive for the H5N1 avian flu virus.

The dead man, Ganesh Sonarkar, 27, was a resident of Nandurbar district of Maharashtra state, Vasudev said. She did not elaborate why Sonarkar had travelled to Surat.

"An alert has been sounded across Gujarat following the outbreak," the official said.

A local health official in Surat, O.P. Tiwari, said Sonarkar was admitted to a hospital in the town about 10 days ago and was "provisionally diagnosed with bird flu".

"He died on Friday," Tiwari said.

Adding to the sense of crisis, blood samples of eight people have also been sent for testing to a virology laboratory in the western city of Pune. Four other people, including three children, were under observation. It was not clear if Sonarkar was among the eight being tested.

"We sent blood samples of these people who are associated with poultry because they had cold and cough," Vijay Satbir Singh, Maharashtra's top health official, told Reuters.

"We want to make sure they don't have any kind of flu."
Health workers in Maharashtra began culling about 300,000 chickens and vaccinating birds on Sunday.

Maharashtra, India's richest and most industrialised state, has hundreds of poultry farms and officials say there are around 900,000 fowl in Nandurbar alone.

T.P. Doke, the state's director of health services, said health workers were also distributing protective clothing, masks and preventive drugs to poultry workers.

The H5N1 virus is known to have infected 171 people worldwide since late 2003, killing 93 of them. Two hundred million birds across Asia, parts of the Middle East, Europe and Africa have died of the virus or been culled.

So far most victims of bird flu have had direct or indirect contact with chickens, but there are fears the virus might mutate into a strain easily passed among people, causing a pandemic in which millions could die.



http://in.today.reuters.com/news/new...a-237323-2.xml

[HenryN]

Re: INDIA Bird flu confirmed (&amp; rumors of humans) 18.2.06

Map updated

http://www.recombinomics.com/H5N1_Map_2006_AfricaF.html

[HenryN]

Re: INDIA Bird flu confirmed (&amp; rumors of humans) 18.2.06

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/02190601/H5N1_Surat_Fatality.html

[Sally Furniss]

Bird flu: Hospitals have no clue (India)

NEW DELHI: More than a day after the first case of bird flu was detected in the country, most city hospitals say they are yet to receive instructions on tackling it.

"We will hold a meeting on Monday and then decide what to do. From what we understand, there is no need for ear-marking any hospital wards.

As far as medicines are concerned, they are needed for those who have been directly exposed to the infected birds which hasn't happened here as yet," said principal secretary (health) Rakesh Mehta.

Officials at Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU) Hospital in Hari Nagar, Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) in central Delhi and Infectious Diseases Hospital in Kingsway Camp, said they had received no instructions from the government on how to handle bird flu.

"There have been no instructions as yet. When we get them, we will prepare the hospital," said Dr M C Nath, medical superintendent (MS) at DDU Hospital.
MS, LHMC, G K Sharma also said: "We haven't received any instructions from the government." Officials at other hospitals said they are following the same protocol they did at the time of the SARS scare in 2003.

"We know what general guidelines to follow like using personal protective gear while handling such patients, but we are awaiting specific guidelines from the higher authorities."

MS, Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital, N K Chaturvedi, said: "We are in a state of general preparedness like we always are for such an eventuality."

Delhi gets most of its chicken from states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab. "The city doesn't have any major poultry farm.

There are three to four places which have more than 20,000 birds and another 40-odd places which have 1,500-2,000 birds in Mehrauli, Alipur and Nangloi," said animal husbandry department director K L Khurana.

"The birds which arrive in the city are slaughtered within a day or two. The virus has an incubation period of about two-27 days. So in that sense, the city is actually contributing to restricting the virus,' he said.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...ow/1420718.cms

[Sally Furniss]

Re: India


Is that a picture of a chicken with bird flu.

[Sally Furniss]

India says bird flu under control

India says bird flu under control

20.02.2006 - 06:14
By Krittivas Mukherjee

MUMBAI (Reuters) - India's first outbreak of bird flu in poultry is under control, health authorities said on Monday, as they launched a door-to-door check for people with fever in a western district.

The world's second-most populous country, known for its poor healthcare system, was testing about 30 people for avian flu after 50,000 birds died in Maharashtra state's Nandurbar district and tests on some fowls showed H5N1 bird flu.

"It (the bird flu) is under control and there is no need to panic. We are culling all chickens in...the affected area," T.P. Doke, director of the state's health services, told Reuters from Nandurbar.

"Thousands of birds have been culled and eggs destroyed since yesterday (Sunday) and more will be killed in the next few days."

Nepal has banned poultry imports from India after the outbreak of bird flu in its giant southern neighbour, a Nepali government official said on Monday.

Earlier, India's Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss had said between 300,000 and 500,000 birds would have to be slaughtered.

Amid fears that the disease could pass to humans, the government said on Sunday it had found no case of human avian influenza after preliminary tests on a dead farmer who was suspected to have been the country's first human victim.

Doke said health workers and volunteers had fanned out in villages around 52 poultry farms in Nandurbar to carry out a door-to-door check for patients reporting fever, cough or cold.

"The house-to-house search will eliminate chances of any one going undetected," he said.

The authorities were distributing protective gear and preventive drugs to hundreds of poultry workers. Blood samples from poultry workers reporting fever and cold had been sent to a virology laboratory in the western city of Pune.

"We have quarantined two persons, including a girl after they showed flu-like symptoms. Their blood and sputum samples have also been sent for testing," Maharashtra's top health official, Vijay Satbir Singh, said.
BARE HANDS

A Reuters photographer in Nandurbar said health workers wearing blue overhauls, anti-viral masks and goggles were culling chicken by wringing their necks or mixing chemicals in chicken feed.

Television images showed dead birds being dumped in pits covered up by heavy earthmovers. The empty coops were being sprayed with disinfectants.

On Sunday, health workers trying to cull birds met with some resistance from poultry farmers, but they began cooperating after authorities offered monetary compensation for every bird killed.

Poultry workers have been warned against culling chicken without protection after television images showed many of them using their bare hands and little protective gear to bury thousands of culled chicken.

In Maharashtra's bustling capital and India's commercial hub Mumbai, civic officials kept vigil in markets selling poultry, checking for dead or sickly birds and asking traders to report any case of bird deaths.

Maharashtra, India's richest and most industrialised state, has hundreds of poultry farms and officials say there are around 900,000 fowl in Nandurbar alone.

The H5N1 virus is known to have infected 171 people worldwide since late 2003, killing 93 of them. Two hundred million birds across Asia, parts of the Middle East, Europe and Africa have died of the virus or been culled.

So far most victims of bird flu have had direct or indirect contact with chickens, but there are fears the virus might mutate into a strain easily passed among people, causing a pandemic in which millions could die.

Indian analysts have warned if the outbreak is not contained the economic costs to Asia's third-largest economy -- which is forecast to grow around 8 percent in the financial year to March 2006 -- would be "very, very high".

(Additional reporting by Adeel Halim in NANDURBAR)

http://www.swisspolitics.org/en/news/index.php?page=news_inhalt&news_id=6486150

[Sally Furniss]

India: Stalls in the city had no customers at


The Hindu
Some stalls in the city had no customers at all on Sunday
Chickens are supplied to Mangalore from farms in Puttur, Buntwal and Ullal
Mangalore consumes about 1.5 lakhs chickens a day

Mangalore, Feb 20: The usual Sunday crowd at chicken shops was thin and some shops had no customers at all, owing to news about the outbreak of bird flu in the country.
The usually crowded market places wore a deserted look on Sunday morning. Chicken shop owners, some of whom had already "prepared" the birds for delivery, were beginning to wonder about the sudden drop in customers, when they heard about the cases of bird flu reported in the country.
Mangalore consumes about 1.5 lakhs chickens a day says Hamid, a wholesale dealer.
Birds from neighbouring districts are brought to the city in trucks every Friday Farms in Puttur, Buntwal, Ullal and Moodbidri supply chicken to Mangalore regularly.
Chicken stalls in Urva Market, Kadri and other places also witnessed a drastic drop in sales on Sunday morning.
The last time the bird flu alarm was raised, local chicken dealers organised a "chick fest" in the city where chicken dishes were sold at low prices.
But now, such ventures might not be enough to draw customers.
Recently, Vice-Chancellor of Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University R.N. Sreenivas Gowda had said that Indian poultry is immune to bird flu and that the West was looking to India to meeting their poultry demands.

http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=18834&n_tit=Mangalore%3A+Bird+flu%3A+Chicken+Sales+Hit+in+the+City+

[Sally Furniss]

Jharkhand on high alert

Bird flu: Jharkhand on high alert


Indo-Asian News Service

Ranchi, February 20, 2006



All district hospitals in Jharkhand have been asked to prepare special wards as the state government has gone on high alert to deal with the possible outbreak of bird flu.

The health department has also been told to set up a helpline for people seeking information on the avian flu.

At a high level meeting hurriedly called on Sunday by development commissioner T Nandkumar, officials were given a crash course on the symptoms and preventive measures of the virus.

Officials were particularly asked to keep a close watch on places like Ranchi, Jamshedpur and Dumka where migratory birds arrive.

All 22 district medical officers have been asked to constitute separate wards in government hospitals and stock medicines to deal with emergencies.

News of the outbreak of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza from Nandurbar district in Maharashtra led to chicken sales dipping in most parts of the state.

"Sales have gone down drastically -- by almost 60 per cent in just two days," said Umesh Singh, president of the Jharkhand Poultry Association. Most hotels and restaurants have stopped making chicken dishes and switched to mutton, prices of which have increased by about 40 per cent.

Known to spread to human beings, the H5N1 strain of bird flu has so far resulted in nearly 100 human casualties across Southeast Asia, mostly in Vietnam. It has been reported in seven countries.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/1...0900030009.htm

[Sally Furniss]

Summer heat could defeat bird flu virus

Summer heat could defeat bird flu virus
By: Vrushali Lad
February 20, 2006 Chickens at a poultry farm in Navapur, where thousands of birds have been culled following an outbreak of avian flu. Public Health Minister Dr Vimal Mundada acknowledged that high temperatures could contain the virus
AP PhotoThe onset of summer in Maharashtra could wipe out the bird flu virus, according to a Mumbai doctor, who says the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus cannot survive temperatures above 39 degrees Celsius.

?While residents of northern Maharashtra are suffering under extreme heat and dry winds, these very conditions will save them at this time,? said Dr T N Ganesh, a veterinarian at a private pharmaceutical firm in the city.

He added, ?We are lucky that the virus has broken out just as we are experiencing the onset of summer. The H5N1 strain will die out the moment temperatures touch 39oCelsius.?

Public Health Minister Dr Vimal Mundada said, ?This is a very technical point. But we have information that weather conditions will also go a long way in containing the virus.?

http://ww1.mid-day.com/news/city/2006/february/131309.htm

[ukcz]

Re: Summer heat could defeat bird flu virus

So to kill it via cooking you need 70C temperatures, but it's only 39C in Mumbai? Given Indonesia still had a problem at similar tempertures, I think we can put this down to wishful thinking.

[Sally Furniss]

Re: Summer heat could defeat bird flu virus

Ageed ukcz, the powers that be use anything to keep the public from panicing.

[Clytie]

First suspected human death from bird flu in India

(Viamede's Post from breaking news

First suspected human death from bird flu in India
First suspected human death from bird flu in India
Sun Feb 19, 2006 10:22 AM IST

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - A man has died of suspected bird flu in western India, a top official said on Sunday, a day after India reported its first bird flu infections in poultry.

"A poultry farm owner died on Friday in Surat district. Local tests have confirmed bird flu but we have sent samples to the national laboratory. A final report is awaited," Vatsala Vasudev, the top district administrator of Surat in western Gujarat state, told Reuters.

Gujarat is adjacent to Maharashtra state, where 50,000 birds died in past days and tests on some of the fowl proved positive for the H5N1 avian flu virus.

The dead man, Ganesh Sonarkar, 27, was a resident of Nandurbar district of Maharashtra state, Vasudev said. She did not elaborate why Sonarkar had travelled to Surat.

"An alert has been sounded across Gujarat following the outbreak," the official said.

A local health official in Surat, O.P. Tiwari, said Sonarkar was admitted to a hospital in the town about 10 days ago and was "provisionally diagnosed with bird flu".

"He died on Friday," Tiwari said.

Adding to the sense of crisis, blood samples of eight people have also been sent for testing to a virology laboratory in the western city of Pune. Four other people, including three children, were under observation. It was not clear if Sonarkar was among the eight being tested.

"We sent blood samples of these people who are associated with poultry because they had cold and cough," Vijay Satbir Singh, Maharashtra's top health official, told Reuters.

"We want to make sure they don't have any kind of flu."
Health workers in Maharashtra began culling about 300,000 chickens and vaccinating birds on Sunday.

Maharashtra, India's richest and most industrialised state, has hundreds of poultry farms and officials say there are around 900,000 fowl in Nandurbar alone.

T.P. Doke, the state's director of health services, said health workers were also distributing protective clothing, masks and preventive drugs to poultry workers.

The H5N1 virus is known to have infected 171 people worldwide since late 2003, killing 93 of them. Two hundred million birds across Asia, parts of the Middle East, Europe and Africa have died of the virus or been culled.

So far most victims of bird flu have had direct or indirect contact with chickens, but there are fears the virus might mutate into a strain easily passed among people, causing a pandemic in which millions could die.



http://in.today.reuters.com/news/new...a-237323-2.xml