Mumbai: More than 9,000 birds have been culled in the Jalgaon district of northern Maharashtra where an outbreak of bird flu was confirmed two days ago.
"What is heartening is that so far no human has shown any symptoms of the disease," says Vijay Singhal, District Collector of Jalgaon.
Speaking to Gulf News from Jalgaon, he said, "We have 37 teams of health workers in the field who are spreading awareness among the people to immediately report to the local health centres if they are suffering from fever, cold or cough. We have also received a good response from the villagers to our call for handing over their poultry."
Just as in Navapur, about 140 km away in Nandurbar district, where the first bird flu outbreak was reported, authorities in Jalgaon have cordoned off an area within a 10 km radius that has 172 villages and 400,000 people.
Culling operations of 75,000 birds would be completed by today, said Singhal. He also said Tamiflu tablets were being distributed to those involved in culling operations and others who have come in contact with infected birds.
Health workers are going from door-to-door and explaining to villagers that the government is carrying out culling operations because the birds could pose a danger to their health.
"On Wednesday, people were busy celebrating Holi but we still held a meeting of village councils to discuss our course of action. Today the response is very good and people are standing in queue to hand over their poultry," said Singhal.
Compared to Navapur where a majority of birds were in commercial poultry farms, Jalgaon's poultry is found in the backyards of village homes.
However, a PTI report states that the Jalgaon outbreak is unlikely to be the last and Maharashtra is likely to face more outbreaks of bird flu.
Quoting a union health ministry official in Delhi, the report states that thousands of infected birds in Nandurbar were illegally shifted to other places immediately after the outbreak with the tacit support of politicians.
Meanwhile, the Bombay Natural History Society which had sent out its teams to the wetlands of Nandurbar, Aurangabad and Nashik has sent blood samples of trapped migratory birds to the Bhopal's high security laboratory.
The results will be known in a week's time, said a BNHS spokesman.
