Bird flu cull begins in eastern India

Health officials in eastern India began the slaughter of tens of thousands of chickens Wednesday, a day after New Delhi confirmed an outbreak of the deadly avian flu in the region.

“The culling of chickens has just started in the core areas like Margram where the disease was first detected,” Anisur Rahaman, the animal resources minister of West Bengal state, told AFP.

The state government has put together 55 rapid response teams to slaughter more than 400,000 chickens in the area, 125 kilometres (75 miles) from the state capital Kolkata, Rahaman said.

India’s agriculture ministry announced the cull Tuesday after confirming poultry deaths due to the H5N1 strain last week in densely-populated West Bengal.

The state borders Bangladesh, where authorities have been struggling to contain an outbreak of the virus.

New Delhi said 35,525 poultry in Birbhum district as well as 288 birds in a state-run poultry farm in Dinajpur district had died, but added the outbreak appeared to be localised.

“We have asked the officials to trace all backyard poultry and cull the chickens immediately to stop the spread of the bird flu,” Rahaman said. This is the third outbreak of the avian flu in India, home to 1.1 billion people, since 2006.

An isolation centre had been opened in a hospital near the affected area and 300 health workers had been sent with medicines and protective gear, he said.

Kolkata, Wednesday, AFP