India (incl. West Bengal) - Poultry (December 2008 -)
Bird flu scare Malda, Dec. 12: The government has sounded a north Bengal alert following a bird flu outbreak in Assam, but at least 250 chickens have died in a Malda village in two days and no sample has been sent for tests.
A panchayat leader said the “chickens got drowsy and died”. Villagers complained of dead birds being dumped all over. “Children are playing with them.” Over 30,000 chickens had died in Malda in January and nearly two lakh were culled. The flu struck Assam less than a month after India declared itself free of the disease. Two teams from Delhi will join three already in that state to assist in human surveillance.
Info on Malda:
"The district Head quarter town is located 365 km north of Kolkata & 260 km south of Siliguri. Lying on the confluence of the Mahananda and Kalindri rivers he Malda town rose to prominence as the river port of the Hindu capital of Pandua. Malda is a base for visiting Gaur and Pandua. Map: http://www.north-bengal.com/places/malda/map.htm
Alert after bird flu in Assam
- 250 chickens dead in malda in 48 hours
OUR CORRESPONDENT
Dead chicken lying around in Sathghoria village. Picture by Surajit Roy
Malda, Dec. 12: The Bengal animal resources development department has sounded an alert in the districts of north Bengal bordering Assam following the outbreak of bird flu in the neighbouring state. At least 250 poultry chickens have died in the past 48 hours in a Malda village.
Animal resources development minister Anisur Rahman had held a video-conference with the officials of his department in the region on Wednesday. “We have alerted the districts bordering Assam after reports of bird flu,” the minister had told the conference.
At Satghoria village in Malda’s Narhatta gram panchayat, Abul Hossain’s 52 and Maheboob Zahed’s 23 chickens died in the past two days. Habibur Rahaman of the same locality had lost 16 birds, Anzor Sheikh had 14, Fuju Sheikh 15, Naju Sheikh 13, Namima Bibi 12 and Md Ismail had lost five chickens. Around 25 chickens died in the village even today, spreading panic among villagers.
Bishan Chowdhury, the pradhan of Narhatta gram panchayat, said: “The chickens first get stricken with drowsiness and then die suddenly. We have brought it to the notice of the animal resources department. This incident has been going on for the past one week or so.”
Villagers complained that there was no one to remove the dead chickens.
“Children can be seen playing with them Dogs feast on them and the remains dirty the place,” one of them said.
More than 30,000 chickens had died of avian flu in January. Nearly two lakh birds had been culled in the district then.
CPM councillor of the Old Malda Municipality Biswanath Sukul wondered why the administration was “sitting idle”.
He demanded that the blood samples of the chickens should immediately be sent to Bhopal for tests. “We will ask compensation from the administration for the affected villagers,” he said.
The pradhan said the department should act on warfooting because the chicken deaths would have far reaching effect on the rural economy.
“Several self-help groups, comprising women only, have in recent times invested in poultry farming,” Chowdhury added.
District animal resources officer Nikhil Sit, however, tried to allay the bird flu fear. “The cause of death is yet to be ascertained,” he said, while asking the affected villagers to contact the nearest veterinary hospital for free vaccination of the birds.
Sridhar Ghosh, the district magistrate, said no one had informed him about the chicken deaths. “I shall ask for a report from the department officials and take necessary steps.”
In Assam, which shares the border with Cooch Behar and Jalpaiguri, the government yesterday sounded a grim warning over the probable spread of avian influenza to humans, saying the state was not equipped to handle such a health scenario.
The alert came in the wake of 82 cases of upper respiratory track infections in humans that were reported from six districts affected by bird flu. However, it was not yet confirmed whether these were bird flu-related cases.
An infection in the upper respiratory track is one of the symptoms of the disease in humans.
“If human beings are affected it would be a bigger disaster than floods or blasts,” health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma had told reporters.
H5N1 Spread to Malda West Bengal
Recombinomics Commentary 21:42
December 12, 2008
at least 250 chickens have died in a Malda village in two days and no sample has been sent for tests.
A panchayat leader said the “chickens got drowsy and died”. Villagers complained of dead birds being dumped all over. “Children are playing with them.”
The above comments strongly suggest H5N1 has spread to West Bengal. Malda is a border town and is about 30 miles from the confirmed H5N1 in Naogaon, Bangladesh (see updated map). Last season, there was extensive culling in Malda (see 2008 map). It was one of the first confirmed locations. Meghalaya had warned of H5N1 in multiple locations in West Bengal and Bangladesh, and recent reports have confirmed the warning.
Thus, even though an alert has been sounded for West Bengal, and chickens are dying, there is no testing and dumped dead chickens are increasing the risk off spread to people and wild birds. This response is similar to the delays and minimal testing last season in West Bengal.
The outbreak this season is considerably earlier than the record breaking outbreaks in India and Bangladesh last season, but the daily reports of new outbreaks in Assam indicate that more reports will be filed soon in adjacent regions in India and Bangladesh.
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"The next major advancement in the health of American people will be determined by what the individual is willing to do for himself"-- John Knowles, Former President of the Rockefeller Foundation
Cooch Behar (WB): An alert for bird flu was sounded on Friday in north Bengal’s Cooch Behar district. Samples of blood have been sent for the test following the outbreak in the neighbouring districts of Assam. Additional District
Magistrate (D), Cooch Behar, Pannalal Mahapatra, said though there was no report of poultry death, arrangements had been made to disinfect vehicles coming from Assam. Officials of the Animal Resource Development department have sent samples of blood collected from different areas for laboratory tests — PTI
Bird flu scare grips Malda
14 Dec 2008, 0344 hrs IST, TNN
MALDA: The avian flu scare is back in Malda, with the death of hundreds of birds in Satgharia village in Englishbazar, a day after an alert over the disease was sounded in Cooch Behar.
The Malda district administration, however, is not ready to press the panic button just yet.
Fajlur Ali, a resident of Satgharia, said: "In the last few days, we noticed that our chickens became drowsy, and finally died. We initially thought that it was Ranikhet disease, which is common during winter. Later, similar deaths began to be reported from other villages also."
Villagers alleged that about 200 birds died in the last three days.
The administration is not very worried, however. "We have had an experience of bird flu last year and we know how to tackle it," said Malda ADM P C ****. "After receiving reports of chicken deaths from Satgharia, an animal resources development team was sent there. They collected samples from both dead and live chickens. We'll send the samples to Bhopal for confirmation," he added. No culling will commence before bird flu is confirmed, the ADM said.
The Cooch Behar administration has made arrangements to disinfect vehicles entering through the Baxirhat entry point, which is in the grip of bird flu. Animal resources development department officials have also collected at least 10 samples from different areas of Cooch Behar and sent them for tests, said the district's ADM, Pannalal Mahapatra.
West Bengal stops movement of poultry products from Assam
Special Correspondent
KOLKATA: The death of some poultry birds over the past two days in the English Bazaar block of West Bengal’s Malda district has raised fears of an attack of avian flu in the district.
“Samples from the dead birds have been sent for tests to the Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Kolkata,” Malda’s Additional District Magistrate (General) P.C. Sit, told The Hindu over telephone on Sunday.
“Experience suggests the possibility of a recurrence of bird flu attacks after a major outbreak. No culling operation in the aftermath of such outbreaks are foolproof,” said an official of the district’s Animal Resources Development Department said.
20,000 birds culled
More than 20,000 poultry birds had been culled following an outbreak of avian flu in the English Bazaar block in January-February this year.
Movement of poultry products into the State from adjoining Assam has been stopped following reports of outbreak of the disease in some parts of that State, said R.K. Sinha, District Magistrate, Cooch Behar.
Border sealed
Cooch Behar shares a border with Assam.
“The border has been sealed for the past week as far as poultry birds and products are concerned. Surveillance is being conducted in the district and there have been no reports of bird deaths so far,” he added.
The health authorities have already instructed the medical superintendents of district hospitals to keep medicine and other equipment ready, leftovers from the last outbreak in January.
The district health authorities have asked the superintendents of all three sub-divisional hospitals and the block medical officers (health) to check the stock of medicine including Tami Flu tablets and personal protective equipment (PPE) and prepare a report in this regard.
According to district health authorities, nearly 600 Tami Flu tablets and 10 cartons of PPE are stored in different hospitals of the district. If another outbreak is declared, more medicine and PPE would be required.
“The state health department has directed us to be aware of a possible bird flu outbreak during the winter. We have already checked the stock of medicine and PPE at different hospitals. We will ask for more medicine and PPE if a fresh outbreak is reported. A meeting between the district administration and the ARD officials will be held on 16 December at DRDC hall in Suri in this regard,” said Dr Sunil Kumar Bhowmik, CMOH, Birbhum.
The ARD has not been informed of any unusual occurrences regarding chickens or other birds in the district.
“We have already formed monitoring committees in the block and sub-division levels. The members of those committees are carrying out regular surveillance on poultry birds. But there has been no reports of unusual poultry bird deaths so far,” said a senior ARD official.
MALDA, Dec. 14: The Malda district health authority seems to have geared itself up with more chickens and ducks dying in Satgharia and Sabjipara villages since Friday.
People have been anticipating Avian Flu recurrence in the region but with the news of more birds dying, they have started to panic. Reports of birds’ death even today in the neighbouring Budhia seems to have further compounded the situation.
The district animal resources development (ARD) officials yesterday visited two villages and collected samples of ailing and dead birds for laboratory test to confirm outbreak of Avian Flu.
The deputy director of ARD in Malda, Mr NK ****, said that his department had found symptoms similar to Bird Flu in the dead and ailing birds. “We have sent three dead birds to Kolkata last night and are waiting for the test reports,” he said.
According to the health official sources, the regional diagnostic laboratory in Kolkata would send the dead birds to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal today for the confirmation of H5N1 virus in their body. “Bird Flu has shown a recurrence inclination. It may recur twice or thrice depending upon the congeniality in the affected area's environment. Thus, we are concerned,” said Mr ****.
It shoud be noted that Malda had experienced the first Bird Flu outbreak in January this year in the Chanchal sub-division area in the northern part of the district and then again in February. Hundreds of chickens had died with teh dreaded Bird Flu in several state run poultry farms in English Bazaar town.
The ARD officials, however, seemed to be denying this, refusing to give credence to the fresh panic reports pouring in from some villagers, although the villagers kept on insisting that hundreds of chickens and ducks had fallen prey to the disease over the last three days.
The ARD officials are reported to have informed the district magistrate of the death of only five birds, four at Satgharia and one at Sabjibazaar.
The additional district magistrate (general), Mr PC Sit, would visit the villages tomorrow. “I would visit the villages to ascertain the exact number of dead birds as confusion prevails over the figures reported from various quarters,” he said today.
Avian Flu: Bengal no wiser
Pranesh Sarkar
KOLKATA, Dec. 14: Has the state learnt any lesson from the previous bird flu outbreak that was termed worst ever in the country? Well, apparently the answer seems a big No.
For the animal resources development department (ARD) officials took six days to visit the villages in Malda, where above average mortality of poultry birds was reported, and collected samples to be sent to the Bhopal-based High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL) for bird flu confirmation test.
However, the action plan on Avian Influenza that was sent to all states in 2006 clearly states that if unusual sickness or above average mortality of poultry or wild and migratory birds is reported, the ARD officials should visit the place within 24 hours and ascertain the circumstances. Samples must be collected and a special messenger should leave for Bhopal within 24 hours after the ARD officials reach the spot.
A few senior ARD officials said above average mortality of poultry birds was being reported from three villages in Englishbazar block in Malda over the past one week or so. But the local ARD officials visited the villages only yesterday and collected dead bird as samples after death rate of poultry birds appeared to be alarming over the past three days.
A senior ARD official said: “An officer of assistant director rank has been sent to Bhopal with the samples this evening. As unusual mortality of poultry birds was reported and as poultry birds are dying with symptoms very similar to Avian Influenza, samples should have been sent much earlier.”
Officials also said as bird flu has not emerged since May in the state, the post-operative surveillance of poultry birds was not being done with utmost sincerity.
“No one can claim that the state was carrying out post operative surveillance with cent per cent sincerity. But alarmingly in some areas, we could achieve only 30-40 percent of the surveillance target over the past few month. This was evident in Malda too, where above average poultry birds were dying of a disease over the past seven days, the local ARD officials came to know about that after five days,” said an official.
However, the director of ARD, Mr K Saha, said: “As I have taken charge as director recently, I cannot comment...”
5000 birds dead in one week, claim villagers
- Blood samples of chickens sent to Bhopal for tests
OUR CORRESPONDENT
Blood samples being collected from a dead chicken at Satghoria in Malda on Sunday. Picture by Surajit Roy
Malda, Dec. 14: Over 500 chickens have died since yesterday morning in Budhia village of Malda, even as the district administration has sent blood samples of dead birds to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal for tests.
Hasnara Begum, the Narhatta gram panchayat member, said the chicken deaths have created panic among the villagers. “Over 5,000 birds died in Satghoria, Budhia, Sabji Para, Sadhya Para and adjoining areas during the past one week,” she said.
On Friday, residents of Satghoria had reported that at least 250 chickens had died.
District magistrate Sridhar Ghosh has convened an emergency meeting tomorrow to take stock of the situation.
“No one has reported to me about the mass death of chickens. I have, however, asked the animal resources department to file a report. We have also kept a watch over the situation so that no chickens or eggs from the affected areas are sold outside,” Ghosh said.
Journalists had shown the district magistrate the video clippings of dead chickens strewn over Budia village, 12km from here.
According to Ghosh, the department officials have collected blood samples from three dead chickens in Satghoria. “We are not yet sure about the cause of the death. We will come to know about it after blood test reports come from Bhopal.”
The reports from Bhopal are expected in two-three days, said Nikhil Sit, the deputy director of the animal resources department of the district.
Idani Bibi of Budhia said she had lost 110 chickens last night. “We have dumped them in a field half-a-kilometre away.” The Narhatta gram panchayat member, who lives in Budhia, said eight chickens died in her house today. “We suspect that the birds are dying because of flu. We have informed the block administration about this.”
In Budhia, the dead chickens included nearly 200 birds of a women-run self-help group, Bandhu. “The birds turn drowsy all of a sudden and die instantly, giving us no time to take them to vets,” Saifun Bibi, a member of the group, said.
The dead birds are being dumped in an open space and the stench is pervading the air. The dogs and cats are feasting on them. Many fear that the villagers may get affected.
Sit said his department did not have the figures of dead chickens. “Our team had visited Satghoria to collect blood samples but we are not aware of the deaths in Budhia.”
5,000 chicken die in Malda, fear of bird flu grips Bengal again
Kolkata Within a year, the fear of bird flu has returned to stalk West Bengal. The death of over 5,000 poultry in Narhatta under English Bazar police station area in Malda in the last few weeks has alarmed the authorities.
Teams from the state Health and Animal Husbandry departments have collected blood samples and sent them to High Security Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Bhopal for tests. “We are awaiting the results,” said Anisur Rehman, state Minister for Animal Resource Development (ARD). “There is no cause for panic. We are doing the needful,” he added.
Learning from the past, when the state government had come under severe criticism for the delay in containing the spread of the virus, the administration is cautious this time. Moreover, the outbreak of the disease in neighbouring Assam has kept the administration on alert.
“We are yet to declare an outbreak since a confirmation is awaited, but as a precaution our teams are ready for an operation,” said Nikhil Kumar Sit, deputy director of Animal Husbandry in Malda. For the last four days, reports of abnormal death of a large number of poultry have started pouring in from the Narhatta Gram Panchayat area. “I woke up on Saturday to find all my 110 birds dead. I do not know what happened to them,” said Edani Bibi, a resident of Narhata.
Meanwhile, the gram panchayat members have already written to the district administration regarding the situation. Husanara Begum, a member of the panchayat said, “We have written to the district administration to take immediate steps. We are sure it is bird flu.”
In January this year, when bird flu broke out in Birbhum district and quickly spread to almost all districts of both north and south Bengal, over two lakh birds were culled in Malda alone.
Apart from initiating culling operations, the state government had ordered a blanket ban of the sale and movement of poultry in the affected districts. It was estimated that the state lost Rs 500 crore due to the outbreak of the disease.
Malda: Fresh poultry deaths were reported from the Englishbazar area of Malda, sparking fears that it was a bird flu attack. But the district animal
resources department (ARD) refused to confirm the deaths.
At least 200 chickens reportedly died over the past 24 hours at Budhia village in the Englishbazar block. The district administration has already sent samples from the dead birds from Satgharia village - where birds had died on Saturday - to the Bhopal laboratory to check for the H5N1 virus.
A high-level meeting will be held on Monday to prepare for a possible avian influenza outbreak. However, even before a battle plan to tackle the possible viral attack has been chalked out, the number game is already on in full swing. The animal resources department did not confirm if chickens had actually died at Budhia . Deputy director of ARD N K **** said, "We have sent two birds from Satgharia tests, but our team has not got any report of abnormal bird death from elsewhere."
District magistrate Sridhar Ghosh said, "ARD has collected the samples of dead birds and sent these to Bhopal. We hope to get the report by Tuesday." He conceded that ADR was not being able to confirm if many birds had died. It was learnt that the additional district magistrate had himself visited the affected villages to confirm the deaths.
At Budhia, villagers like Bahadur Munshi, Firoz Sultan and Yakub Ali have reported the deaths of chickens in last 48 hours. Kayema Biwi claimed, "About 27 chickens have died in the last 24 hours." Gram panchayat member Hasnara herself is one of the worst sufferers , as she lost 22 birds overnight.
True to their claims, the villagers were seen burying dead birds, while remains of dead birds were scattered here and there. Hasnara said, "On Saturday, about 250 birds died, while at least 100 died in our panchayat area alone. I've informed the block officials repeatedly, but to no avail."
Although official confirmation is awaited, there is every chance it is a bird flu outbreak, said locals. ARD experts said that a place that had witnessed a bird flu outbreak had a high chance of seeing another viral attack in a year. Earlier this year, about 23,500 birds were culled in Englishbazar after a bird flu outbreak, while about 87,000 were culled in Chanchol subdivision.
On Saturday, Satgharia villagers had complained that 200-odd birds had died over the three previous days. Among other symptoms, villagers reported that the birds were becoming drowsy before dying . A villager said that the poultry-owners had first suspected it to be Ranikhet disease (Newcastle Disease,ed) , which attacks at the beginning of winter. But when reports of bird deaths started trickling in from other villages, they suspected it was bird flu.
KOLKATA - The death of nearly 5,000 chickens over the past week has sparked fears of another bird flu outbreak in India's West Bengal state, officials said on Monday.
The latest deaths come months after health authorities in the eastern state had to kill five million poultry to control the disease.
The chickens died in Budhia village in Malda district, about 200km north of the state capital Kolkata, said N.K. ****, the local director of animal resources development.
'Two blood samples of the dead poultry have been sent to laboratory to confirm the cause of the death,' he said.
'The report is likely to come in a day or two.' Early in 2008, bird flu spread to 14 of the 19 districts in West Bengal, which has a population of more than 80 million. However, no human case was reported. -- AFP
KOLKATA, India, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Laboratory tests have found the H5N1 bird flu virus in dead poultry in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, a senior state government official said on Monday.
"The laboratory test in Bhopal has confirmed the presence of the H5N1 virus in the dead birds," Sridhar Ghosh, the senior official in West Bengal's Malda district where the outbreak was found, told Reuters. (Reporting by Sujoy Dhar, Editing by Dean Yates)
(Adds details)
KOLKATA, India, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Laboratory tests have proven a new outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in dead birds in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, a state government official said on Monday.
"The laboratory test in Bhopal has confirmed the presence of the H5N1 virus in the dead birds," Sridhar Ghosh, the senior official in West Bengal's Malda district, told Reuters.
Ghosh said the virus had been found in three dead birds tested in a laboratory in the central Indian city of Bhopal.
Indian authorities are already culling hundreds of thousands of birds in the northeastern state of Assam, where health authorities are also monitoring about 100 people who had shown signs of the virus.
Those patients in Assam's Guwahati, the main city in the region, were suffering from fever and respiratory infections, symptoms of the H5N1 bird flu virus in humans.
There have been no confirmed human cases of H5N1 among those patients being monitored.
Ghosh said state officials in West Bengal were told of the latest positive tests on Monday.
West Bengal officials said several hundred birds could have been found dead but disputed local media reports that as many as 5,000 birds were dead.
"We could start culling from tomorrow to contain the outbreak," Ghosh said by telephone from Malda, 350 km (220 miles) north of Kolkata.
Culling operations which began in Guwahati in Assam had been expanded to nearby Meghalaya state as a precaution, authorities said on Sunday.
While no human cases have been reported in India, experts fear the H5N1 virus might mutate or combine with the highly contagious seasonal influenza virus and spark a pandemic that could kill millions of people. (Reporting by Sujoy Dhar; Editing by Paul Tait and Dean Yates)
The Associated Press
Monday, December 15, 2008 CALCUTTA, India: The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been found in samples taken from dead chickens in eastern India, authorities said Monday.
It was the second outbreak of bird flu in India's West Bengal state and came as several thousand birds have been slaughtered in the neighboring state of Assam, where authorities have been battling an outbreak for several weeks.
Tests from samples taken from the village of Lorhata, some 220 miles (354 kilometers) northeast of Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal, showed the presence of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, said Sirthar Kumar Ghosh, a local official.
Ghosh said authorities would begin slaughtering birds Tuesday. Some 3,500 birds have died in Lorhata in recent days.
India has contained several previous outbreaks of the disease, including in West Bengal in January, when they slaughtered some 4 million birds.
No humans in India are known to have caught the disease, which has killed at least 246 people worldwide according to the World Health Organization. Bird flu remains difficult for humans to catch, but experts fear the virus might mutate into a new form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.
The Associated Press
Monday, December 15, 2008 CALCUTTA, India: The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been found in samples taken from dead chickens in eastern India, authorities said Monday.
It was the second outbreak of bird flu in India's West Bengal state and came as several thousand birds have been slaughtered in the neighboring state of Assam, where authorities have been battling an outbreak for several weeks.
Tests from samples taken from the village of Lorhata, some 220 miles (354 kilometers) northeast of Calcutta, the capital of West Bengal, showed the presence of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, said Sirthar Kumar Ghosh, a local official.
Ghosh said authorities would begin slaughtering birds Tuesday. Some 3,500 birds have died in Lorhata in recent days.
India has contained several previous outbreaks of the disease, including in West Bengal in January, when they slaughtered some 4 million birds.
No humans in India are known to have caught the disease, which has killed at least 246 people worldwide according to the World Health Organization. Bird flu remains difficult for humans to catch, but experts fear the virus might mutate into a new form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.
UPDATE 2-Tests prove new bird flu cases in east India state
Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:36pm IST
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By Sujoy Dhar
KOLKATA, India, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Laboratory tests on dead birds have proven a new outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, a state government official said on Monday.
"The laboratory test in Bhopal has confirmed the presence of the H5N1 virus in the dead birds," Sridhar Ghosh, the senior official in West Bengal's Malda district, told Reuters.
Ghosh said the virus had been found in three dead birds tested in a laboratory in the central Indian city of Bhopal.
Indian authorities are already culling hundreds of thousands of birds in the northeastern state of Assam, where health authorities are also monitoring about 100 people who had shown signs of the virus.
Those patients in Assam's Guwahati, the main city in the region, were suffering from fever and respiratory infections, symptoms of the H5N1 bird flu virus in humans.
There have been no confirmed human cases of H5N1 among those patients being monitored nor at any other time in India.
But experts fear the H5N1 virus might mutate or combine with the highly contagious seasonal influenza virus and spark a pandemic that could kill millions of people.
Since the virus resurfaced in Asia in 2003, it has killed more than 200 people in a dozen countries, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says.
Ghosh said state officials in West Bengal were told of the latest positive tests on Monday.
West Bengal officials said several hundred birds could have been found dead but disputed local media reports that as many as 5,000 birds were dead.
"We could start culling from tomorrow to contain the outbreak," Ghosh said by telephone from Malda, 350 km (220 miles) north of Kolkata.
The WHO has described an outbreak of bird flu in communist-ruled West Bengal last January, when more than 4 million birds were culled, as the worst ever in India.
An outbreak of bird flu in poultry was also detected in Malda district in March, resulting in the culling of more than 50,000 birds. Authorities later said in May that the virus had been stamped out in the area.
Culling operations which began in Guwahati in Assam last month had been expanded to nearby Meghalaya state as a precaution, authorities said on Sunday.
(Additional reporting by Bappa Majumdar in NEW DELHI) (Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Dean Yates)
Samples of birds from West Bengal's Malda district have tested positive for bird flu, according to District Magistrate Sreedhar Ghosh.
The authorities have also asked people to refrain from sale, purchase and eating of poultry products after over 1,000 chickens perished in five villages under Narhatta gram panchayat of Malda district on Monday.
Narhatta gram panchayat pradhan Bishan Chowdhury said 3,500 chickens died in five affected villages - Budhia-Kola, Anandipur, Nagrai, Sabjipara and Satgharia - in a week.
"Budhia-Kola is the worst affected with 1,500 birds dying today. Over 2,000 perished there since Saturday," Chowdhury told PTI.
Narhatta gram panchayat falls under Englishbazar block and the BDO concerned announced that no chicken should be sold or eaten in the affected area.
KOLKATA, India (AFP)--The death of nearly 5,000 chickens over the past week has sparked fears of another bird flu outbreak in India's West Bengal state, officials said Monday.
The latest deaths come months after health authorities in the eastern state had to kill five million poultry to control the disease.
The chickens died in Budhia village in Malda district, about 200 kilometers ( 130 miles) north of the state capital Kolkata, said N.K. ****, the local director of animal resources development.
"Two blood samples of the dead poultry have been sent to laboratory to confirm the cause of the death," he said. "The report is likely to come in a day or two." Early in 2008, bird flu spread to 14 of the 19 districts in West Bengal, which has a population of more than 80 million. However, no human case was reported.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires 12-15-080712ET Copyright (c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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India (incl. West Bengal) - Poultry (December 2008 -)
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