Mumbai: Veterinary workers in India began throttling about 250,000 chickens yesterday hoping to contain a third outbreak of bird flu in poultry in two months.
Seven new cases of bird flu in chickens have been reported in western Maharashtra state, the site of two earlier outbreaks this year, and one in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh state.
The virus was suspected to be the H5N1 strain and tests were under way on samples from the birds to confirm the type.
Veterinary and civic workers in the two states identified a 10 km radius around affected villages and began moving door-to-door asking people to hand over their poultry.
"We have to cull 250,000 chickens spread over 288 villages of Jalgaon district [in Maharashtra]," Bijay Kumar, the state's animal husbandry commissioner, told Reuters. "Culling began this afternoon, but it will pick up tomorrow."
Similar process
In Madhya Pradesh, a similar process was under way to cull more than 6,000 birds in Burhanpur district which adjoins Jalgaon.
Rajesh Rajora, the state's veterinary services commissioner, said 23 teams of civic officials and doctors were culling, and then cleaning up the affected area.
In Maharashtra, health officials had drawn up a list of people to be monitored in the affected areas.
The authorities sought to play down the latest outbreak, saying it should not be treated as a fresh case because the new infections were reported from an area earlier identified as a bird flu zone.
But the head of the country's top animal diseases laboratory said India's efforts to contain outbreaks of bird flu in poultry were being hindered by spoiled blood samples from birds.
"There are some gaps, no doubt. Starting from collection to the media in which samples are kept, and then transportation," said H.K. Pradhan, head of the High Security Animal Diseases Laboratory.
"Many samples get spoiled," Pradhan added.
Hundreds of thousands of chickens were killed in February and this month after the first two outbreaks in Maharashtra.
Although India has tested scores of people in areas where chickens have tested positive for bird flu, it has not reported avian influenza in humans.
