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Kolkata: Authorities inspected poultry markets yesterday in an attempt to prevent the country's worst outbreak of bird flu from spreading to crowded Kolkata, as Thailand announced a new outbreak, prompting the United Nations to warn of the global threat posed by the virus.
The danger of the virulent H5N1 strain of the disease was illustrated in Indonesia, where a man from the outskirts of Jakarta died of bird flu yesterday, bringing the country's death toll to 98.
On Wednesday, Vietnam announced its first bird flu death this year, taking its toll to 48 since the virus began devastating Asian poultry stocks in late 2003.
Mutate
Bird flu has killed at least 219 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation. Although it remains hard for humans to catch, experts fear it will mutate into a new form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic.
Kolkata health officials searched poultry markets yesterday, looking for signs of infected birds after the virus was discovered just 30 kilometres from the city of 14 million people.
"We are keeping a strict vigil," said D.D. Chattopadhyay, the city's chief medical officer. No human cases have been reported in India so far.
About 700,000 birds have been slaughtered since the disease was discovered last week in West Bengal state and health workers plan to kill another 1.4 million, said state Animal Husbandry Minister Anisur Rahman.
"We are doing our best to stop the virus from spreading to Kolkata and other districts," Rahman said, adding that some 750 teams were involved in the slaughter.
But concerns have been heightened by authorities' failure so far to halt the spread of the disease, amid accusations of bureaucratic bungling and problems securing cooperation from villagers, who have hidden chickens or smuggled them to other areas, fearing financial loss.
"Culling is slow and ham-handed," said West Bengal Poultry Welfare Association President Shaikh Nazrul Islam, who said losses to the poultry industry totalled one billion rupees (Dh93.5 million) in the last week.
While India has successfully contained two previous outbreaks, they were both in large poultry farms. This outbreak has largely struck chickens kept by peasants in their small yards, and many villagers were unaware of the danger.
India's neighbours, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Bangladesh, all announced they were halting imports of poultry products from India.
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