Live poultry imports from India banned

Sri Lanka yesterday banned imports of live birds and chickens from India, G. Wijesiri, a senior official with the Animal Health Department said.

This decision has been taken in the wake of the spread of the disease among birds in India. India’s West Bengal state said Wednesday it was falling behind in its attempts to halt the spread of bird flu among poultry as the virus was confirmed in two new areas.

Despite receiving reinforcements from neighbouring states to help slaughter more than two million birds, at least 1,000 additional veterinarians and doctors are needed to fight the outbreak that began more than a week ago, the state’s animal resources minister said.

“We don’t have the infrastructure to battle this epidemic. Bird flu is spreading to new areas. Thousands of chickens are dropping dead every day,” the minister, Anisur Rahaman, told AFP.

Rahaman said hundreds more culling teams had been sent to 10 districts where bird flu had been confirmed, but not all of them were accompanied by medical staff.

“Bird flu has spread to two more districts in West Bengal. It has been confirmed by telephone,” said Rahaman. “We have to kill more poultry. The target will be more than two million.”

The latest outbreak began in the village of Margram, 240 kilometres (150 miles) from the state capital Kolkata.

It is the third and worst to hit India since 2006, which has so far not had any human cases of bird flu.

AFP