India worst bird flu outbreak spreads

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India worst bird flu outbreak spreads

by Sailendra Sil Fri Jan 25, 5:04 PM ET

KOLKATA, India (AFP) - India's worst outbreak of bird flu spread as

health authorities battled on Friday to stop it reaching the densely

populated city of Kolkata amid heavy rain that hampered culling efforts.

Authorities reported the disease had affected two more districts,

bringing the number hit by avian flu to 12 out of West Bengal state's

total of 19.

Howra, one of the new districts reporting the disease, neighbours

Kolkata. The other district was Purulia on the border with the eastern

state of Bihar.

" We're afraid bird flu may spread to many areas -- it has already

spread to two more districts, " said state animal resources minister

Anisur Rahaman in Kolkata, which has 13.2 million people, many of whom

live in congested slums.

" We've yet to be able to control this disease, " he told AFP, adding

new outbreaks were being reported in districts affected earlier.

The disease has spread to more than half of West Bengal state since

the deadly H5N1 strain was first confirmed in dead chickens more than

a week ago.

" The government has banned the smuggling of chicken to city markets

from affected areas, " Rahaman said. " All we can do is keep a watch on

the markets. "

Officials at entry points to Kolkata were disinfecting cars and other

vehicles entering the city.

India has not had any human cases of bird flu. But Rahaman said he

feared the disease would spread to humans with hundreds of people

reporting flu symptoms and children " playing with chickens. "

The outbreak was first reported in the village of Margram, 240

kilometres (150 miles) from Kolkata, the capital of the Marxist-ruled

eastern state.

Elsewhere in West Bengal, state party workers were to join vets and

doctors in a bid to ramp up the culling of hundreds of thousands more

chickens after two days of rains slowed operations.

The state says it needs to reach its target of slaughtering at least

2.2 million birds in the state of 80 million people as health

authorities seek to control India's third -- and worst -- outbreak of

the disease.

Two days of unseasonal rains have turned many rural dirt roads into

mud rivers, making it impossible for health teams to reach farms.

Nearly one million chickens have been slaughtered but villagers

complained culling teams were leaving the carcasses on roadsides to rot.

Humans typically catch the disease by coming into direct contact with

infected poultry, but experts fear the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus

may mutate into a form easily transmissible between people.

Migratory birds have been largely blamed for the global spread of the

disease, which has killed more than 200 people worldwide since 2003.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Bangladesh from where the Indian outbreak

is believed to have spread, health teams slaughtered nearly 4,600

birds in a border area amid a worsening bird flu situation across the

country.

Police and officials sealed off a one square kilometre (0.4 square

miles) area at Dinajpur close to the West Bengal border after tests

confirmed the H5N1 strain at a farm, government spokesman Salahuddin

Khan said.

The new outbreak came as the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said

the bird flu situation had worsened in the impoverished country of 144

million people and posed a danger to public health.

Since Bangladesh's first bird flu outbreak last February, the disease

has been detected in 26 out of the country's 64 districts. Officials

insist the disease is under control.

http://news./s/afp/healthfluindiabangladesh