India (incl. West Bengal) - Poultry (December 2008 -)

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Dec 15, 2008
</TR><!-- headline one : start --><TR>Fresh bird flu fears in India <!--10 min-->
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><!-- show image if available --></TBODY></TABLE>




<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"-->
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

http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking+News/Asia/Story/STIStory_314734.html

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Tests prove bird flu in east India poultry-official

Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:43pm IST

<SCRIPT language=javascript> var storyKeywords = "BIRDFLU INDIA/WESTBENGAL (URGENT)"; var RTR_ArticleTitle = "Tests prove bird flu in east India poultry-official"; var RTR_ArticleBlurb = " 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..."; </SCRIPT><SCRIPT type=text/javascript>var showComments = false;var allowSLCall = false; function singlePageView() { document.location.href = ReplaceQueryStringParam(document.location.href, "sp", "true"); } function replaceString(oldS, newS, fullS) { // Replaces oldS with newS in the string fullS for (var i = 0; i < fullS.length; i++) { if (fullS.substring(i, i + oldS.length) == oldS) { fullS = fullS.substring(0, i) + newS + fullS.substring(i + oldS.length, fullS.length); } } return fullS; } </SCRIPT><INPUT id=CurrentSize type=hidden value=13 name=CurrentSize>
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<SCRIPT>var csvSymbolIds = "";var quoteLink = "";</SCRIPT>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)

http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINSP42405320081215

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12150806/H5N1_Malda_Confirmed.html

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

UPDATE 1-Tests prove new bird flu cases in east India state

Mon Dec 15, 2008 8:11pm IST

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<SCRIPT>var csvSymbolIds = "";var quoteLink = "";</SCRIPT>(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)


http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINSP42137920081215?rpc=401&=undefined&sp=true

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Bird flu confirmed in eastern India

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.

http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=18690761

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Bird flu confirmed in eastern India

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.

http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=18690761

Lorhata is almost certainly Narhatta.

 

[Shiloh]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Source: http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINSP42137920081215?sp=true

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)

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Malda samples test positive for bird flu

http://javascript<b></b>:tsz('article_body','12px') http://javascript<b></b>:tsz('article_body','16px')
15 December, 2008 10:06:09

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.

http://howrah.org/india_news/37057.html

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Fresh Bird Flu Fear In Eastern India - Official




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.</PRE>
</PRE>
http://www.nasdaq.com/aspxcontent/N...esh Bird Flu Fear In Eastern India - Official</PRE>

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

No update yet at WHO site

http://www.searo.who.int/en/Section10/Section1027.htm

http://www.searo.who.int/en/Section10/Section1027/Section2095/Section2462_13929.asp

or India site

http://dahd.nic.in/birdflue.htm

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

India reports another outbreak of bird flu in West Bengal state

1 hour ago
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 were being slaughtered in the neighbouring state of Assam.
A local official said authorities in West Bengal would begin slaughtering birds Tuesday.
India has contained several previous outbreaks of the disease, including in West Bengal in January, when some four million birds were slaughtered.
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.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5jESl1A4EnVz3BLb58Z8-Vk7lW77g

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Avian Flu virus found in West Bengal, culling ordered

IANSFirst Published : 15 Dec 2008 11:22:55 PM ISTLast Updated : KOLKATA: Strains of the dreaded avian flu virus have been detected in Malda district of West Bengal, a state minister said Monday.

"Two blood samples of dead poultry were sent to the High Security Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Bhopal. The laboratory conducted tests and has told us that both the samples tested positive for avian flu. They will now conduct other detailed tests," Animal Resources Development (ARD) minister Anisur Rehman told IANS.
The samples were from Narhatta and Satgheria villages under English Bazar police station in Malda district.
"We have already issued the necessary notification and ordered culling of poultry within a radius of three km from the affected district," he said.
The samples were sent to the laboratory after around 5,000 poultry died in Narhatta village during the past one week.
Sale and consumption of poultry products have been banned in the affected area.
Rehman said there was no cause for panic, as the district authorities were taking the necessary steps to curb the problem.
Over 200,000 birds were culled when avian flu was detected in several North Bengal and South Bengal districts in January.

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/...est+Bengal,+culling+ordered&artid=XiVR2ymFnaI=

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Avian Flu virus found in West Bengal, culling ordered

IANSFirst Published : 15 Dec 2008 11:22:55 PM ISTLast Updated : KOLKATA: Strains of the dreaded avian flu virus have been detected in Malda district of West Bengal, a state minister said Monday.

"Two blood samples of dead poultry were sent to the High Security Disease Diagnostic Laboratory at Bhopal. The laboratory conducted tests and has told us that both the samples tested positive for avian flu. They will now conduct other detailed tests," Animal Resources Development (ARD) minister Anisur Rehman told IANS.
The samples were from Narhatta and Satgheria villages under English Bazar police station in Malda district.
"We have already issued the necessary notification and ordered culling of poultry within a radius of three km from the affected district," he said.
The samples were sent to the laboratory after around 5,000 poultry died in Narhatta village during the past one week.
Sale and consumption of poultry products have been banned in the affected area.
Rehman said there was no cause for panic, as the district authorities were taking the necessary steps to curb the problem.
Over 200,000 birds were culled when avian flu was detected in several North Bengal and South Bengal districts in January.

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/...est+Bengal,+culling+ordered&artid=XiVR2ymFnaI=

The two villages above are about a mile apart.

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

After Assam, bird flu in Bengal

After Assam, West Bengal is next to be hit by bird flu. And it has returned after just a gap of six months. While official confirmation is awaited, Animal Resource Development department officials said the H5N1 strain was found in samples of carcasses from Malda district after preliminary tests.
Bird flu was reported in the English Bazaar area of Malda after more than 2,000 poultry birds died in backyard farms. The district administration is set to start culling in English Bazaar and its adjoining blocks from Tuesday, without waiting for official confirmation from the Union Agriculture Ministry. The state government on Monday cancelled all leaves of ARD department officials indefinitely.
The flu first hit Rampurhat in Birbhum in mid-January this year, spreading fast to 14 other districts. After that, the government had decided to conduct an epidemiological surveillance across districts to prevent any further recurrence or outbreak.
Dr JL Chakraborty, former ARD director, said: ?The flu might spread rapidly again in other districts like the previous attack but it is unfortunate there is no epidemiological survey in this regard despite the government's assurance.?

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Story...e72&&Headline=After+Assam,+bird+flu+in+Bengal

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Bird flu hits West Bengal again
Press Trust of India
Monday, December 15, 2008, (Malda)
After a gap of eight months, bird flu has returned to West Bengal with samples of dead chicken from Malda district testing positive for the disease.
District Magistrate Sreedhar Ghosh told reporters in Malda on Monday that a notification about the disease would be made by the Centre on Tuesday after which culling would begin.
After a large number of chickens died in several villages under Englishbazar block in the district, ARD department collected samples of the dead birds and sent them to the specialised laboratory in Bhopal for testing.
At a meeting held earlier in the day, district authority banned transportation of poultry products outside the three affected villages of Satgheria, Sabjipara and Madhyapara.
The BDO of Englishbazar also banned selling of chicken in the affected areas.
Avian influenza outbreak was reported at Chanchal and Englishbazar in January and March respectively. At that time a total of 1,09,000 birds were culled in these two areas.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080076519&ch=12/16/2008 12:51:00 AM

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Malda gripped by bird flu fear
BS Reporter / Kolkata December 16, 2008, 0:38 IST


Following the death of large number of chickens and the fresh bird flu scare in Malda district of West Bengal, the state government has adopted measures to minimize transmission of germs or human infection on this count.

At least 5,000 chickens died in Narhatta village in the English Bazar police station area at Malda in the last week.
Blood samples of the birds had been sent to testing laboratories in Bhopal.
According to sources in the health and family welfare department of West Bengal, the Centre was yet to notify bird flu in the district. Even then, the state government directed district hospitals to prepare isolation wards to handle human cases. Also, the state was in the process of forming rapid response team to contain the disease from spreading, and was reviewing stock of medicine and ventilators.
Officials from the department rushed to Malda and met the district magistrate. Sale and consumption of poultry products was banned in Malda now. The possibility of bird flu in the state emerged after recent confirmation of infection of H5N1 virus among domestic poultry in Kamrup and other districts of Assam, which prohibited sale of poultry and eggs.
According to experts, the bird flu virus multiplied rapidly in winter, and died out in summer. Kajal Durra of Kolkata Egg Merchants' Association claimed sale of eggs in the state had not been impacted because of the bird flu scare. "As eggs in West Bengal mainly come from Andhra Pradesh, where there is no flu scare, sale should not be impacted. We will have to wait and watch the reports from the testing laboratory in Bhopal, before coming into a conclusion," said Dutta. In the English Bazaar block alone more than 20,000 poultry birds died. The rapid spread of Bird flu in early 2008 had almost killed off the poultry trade in the state.

http://business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=343319

 

[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=4 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=articleheader>Lab confirms flu virus in Malda birds
- Culling to begin today, alert sounded in south dinajpur </TD></TR><TR><TD class=articleauthor>OUR BUREAU</TD></TR><TR><TD class=story align=left><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=2 width=172 align=left border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD></TR><TR><TD class=articleauthor align=left>Disinfectants being sprayed at a poultry farm in Fulbari near Siliguri on Monday. Picture by Kundan Yolmo </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Dec. 15: The Malda district administration has been told to start culling chickens in Englishbazar block after reports confirmed the presence of the avian flu virus in dead birds, samples of which had been sent to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal.
The Bengal animal resources development (ARD) department received the reports this evening. The samples had been collected from the Narhatta gram panchayat area of the block yesterday.
The ARD secretary, Dilip Chakrabarty, said culling would be done within 5km radius of Narhatta. ?Instructions are being faxed to the district magistrate,? he said over the phone from Calcutta.
Malda district magistrate Sridhar Ghosh, however, said he was yet to receive the instructions. ?But I have ordered the blockwise formation of culling teams. The ARD experts from veterinary hospital at Belgachhia in Calcutta who came today were also apprehensive about a bird flu attack,? Ghosh said. Seven moujas within the 5-km radius of Narhatta have been alerted.
The authorities of South Dinajpur zilla parishad also sounded a general alert in the district because of the outbreak of flu in Malda.
The karmadhaksha of the animal resources department in the zilla parishad, Nandadulal Ghosh, who reviewed the situation with the officials, said instructions were given to the administration of Hariharpur, Bansihari and Tapan blocks to prevent entry of poultry from Malda either by road or trains. Villagers of the blocks ? the state highway connecting Malda runs over these areas ? were asked to get in touch with the veterinary hospital in case they noticed any abnormality in the birds.
?Till today, we have not received reports of bird deaths in our district. We have started taking precautionary measures in view of the outbreak of the killer disease in Malda,? the karmadhaksha said.
In the Hili check post, disinfectants are being sprayed on trucks coming from Bangladesh.
In January, over 250 chickens had died of the H5N1 virus in state-run farms in Balurghat. Nearly 1.5 lakh birds were culled in adjoining areas.
A controversy has cropped up over the exact number of chickens that had died in Malda district in the past one week. Earlier in the day, the ARD secretary had said 20 chickens had died in Malda because of ?unknown diseases?. The ARD officials, who had visited the Narhatta panchayat area, said 11 chickens died at Satghoria.
But Englishbazar panchayat samiti president Akram Hossain claimed that over 5,000 chickens have died in the past seven days. ?I stick to what I had said yesterday. The reports of deaths are coming from the villages everyday,? Hossain said reacting to the officials? claims. ?Wherever we went, the villagers came out with dead chickens. We also saw birds being dumped in fields and bushes. We have urged the villagers to spray disinfectants to keep away the infectious disease.?
Hossain said there were 73 villages within 3km radius of Narhatta and Kotuali gram panchayats. ?This means there are more than 30,000 chickens, besides duck and pigeons. All of them will be culled,? he added.​

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

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081216/jsp/siliguri/story_10258309.jsp

 

[Shiloh]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1081216/jsp/siliguri/story_10258309.jsp

Lab confirms flu virus in Malda birds
- Culling to begin today, alert sounded in south dinajpur
OUR BUREAU

Dec. 15: The Malda district administration has been told to start culling chickens in Englishbazar block after reports confirmed the presence of the avian flu virus in dead birds, samples of which had been sent to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal.

The Bengal animal resources development (ARD) department received the reports this evening. The samples had been collected from the Narhatta gram panchayat area of the block yesterday.

The ARD secretary, Dilip Chakrabarty, said culling would be done within 5km radius of Narhatta. ?Instructions are being faxed to the district magistrate,? he said over the phone from Calcutta.

Malda district magistrate Sridhar Ghosh, however, said he was yet to receive the instructions. ?But I have ordered the blockwise formation of culling teams. The ARD experts from veterinary hospital at Belgachhia in Calcutta who came today were also apprehensive about a bird flu attack,? Ghosh said. Seven moujas within the 5-km radius of Narhatta have been alerted.

The authorities of South Dinajpur zilla parishad also sounded a general alert in the district because of the outbreak of flu in Malda.

The karmadhaksha of the animal resources department in the zilla parishad, Nandadulal Ghosh, who reviewed the situation with the officials, said instructions were given to the administration of Hariharpur, Bansihari and Tapan blocks to prevent entry of poultry from Malda either by road or trains. Villagers of the blocks ? the state highway connecting Malda runs over these areas ? were asked to get in touch with the veterinary hospital in case they noticed any abnormality in the birds.

?Till today, we have not received reports of bird deaths in our district. We have started taking precautionary measures in view of the outbreak of the killer disease in Malda,? the karmadhaksha said.

In the Hili check post, disinfectants are being sprayed on trucks coming from Bangladesh.

In January, over 250 chickens had died of the H5N1 virus in state-run farms in Balurghat. Nearly 1.5 lakh birds were culled in adjoining areas.

A controversy has cropped up over the exact number of chickens that had died in Malda district in the past one week. Earlier in the day, the ARD secretary had said 20 chickens had died in Malda because of ?unknown diseases?. The ARD officials, who had visited the Narhatta panchayat area, said 11 chickens died at Satghoria.

But Englishbazar panchayat samiti president Akram Hossain claimed that over 5,000 chickens have died in the past seven days. ?I stick to what I had said yesterday. The reports of deaths are coming from the villages everyday,? Hossain said reacting to the officials? claims. ?Wherever we went, the villagers came out with dead chickens. We also saw birds being dumped in fields and bushes. We have urged the villagers to spray disinfectants to keep away the infectious disease.?

Hossain said there were 73 villages within 3km radius of Narhatta and Kotuali gram panchayats. ?This means there are more than 30,000 chickens, besides duck and pigeons. All of them will be culled,? he added.
Top

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/12150806/H5N1_Malda_Confirmed.html

Commentary

H5N1 Confirmed In Malda West Bengal
Recombinomics Commentary 14:44
December 15, 2008

"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.

The confirmation of H5N1 in Malda is not a surprise. Over 5000 chickens and ducks had died suddenly in te past few days and the infections had spread to multiple villages (see satellite map). Moreover, Malda is on the border of Bangladesh and two outbreaks have been confirmed in northern Bangladesh. In addition, multiple outbreaks were confirmed near Dhaka as well as throughout Assam.

However, this is the first time that confirmed H5N1 has been dramatically spreading in Bangladesh and two districts in India. Last season by the time H5N1 was confirmed in Tripura, activity in West Bengal and Bangladesh was significantly reduced.

The confirmation in West Bengal is also early in the season. Temperatures in the area are still in the 80’s. Last season most of they spread was in the cooler months of January and February.

Thus, the confirmation of the H5N1 explosion of cases in Malda is cause for concern, as are the symptomatic patients in Barpeta, Rampur, and Chirang in Assam.


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[HenryN]

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Re: West Bengal - Poultry (December 2008 -)

Bird Flu alarm bell rings in Jalpaiguri, S Dinajpur districts
Statesman News Service
JALPAIGURI / BALURGHAT, Dec. 15: The Jalpaiguri district administration today decided to stop importing poultry items from Assam and Bangladesh for the time being in view of the Bird Flu outbreak. In South Dinajpur, the district administration stepped up vigil regarding poultry movement in and out of the district and has also asked the BSF to keep an eye on the Bangladesh border.
The Jalpaiguri district magistrate, Mrs Vandana Yadav said today that the administration has initiated several precautions to avoid the spread of Bird Flu in the district. ?Checks have been put up at Kumargram, Barobisha etc bordering Assam to restrict entry of poultry,? the DM added.
In Balurghat, South Dinajpur district officer Animal Husbandry Department Mr Sreetanu Maitee said that entry of birds from Malda, which has reported presence of the disease and from North Dinajpur is being restricted. ?Moreover, the BSF has been asked to be alert against entry of poultry from across the border and report unnatural bird deaths in the border area,? he added. In Jalpaiguri, the DM informed that a monitoring team and a rapid action team has been set up in every subdivision of the district to restrict the spread of bird flue virus.

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