India struggles to contain bird flu as farmers resist cull

Channel NewsAsia 19 Jan 08;

MARGRAM, India : Authorities analysed on Saturday samples from dead chickens amid fears a bird flu outbreak may have spread in eastern India as locals resisted a massive cull.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called the outbreak of avian flu among poultry in the densely populated eastern state of West Bengal the worst the country has faced - partly because it is more widespread.

West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee called the situation "very serious," while officials reported villagers were throwing chicken carcasses into rivers and ponds, increasing the risk of the virus spreading.

Bird flu has been confirmed in three districts of West Bengal where 85,000 poultry have died from the disease, the federal government said in a statement.

Fresh bird deaths were reported from another three districts and laboratory officials were analysing some of the dead poultry, the statement said.

The outbreak is the third in India, home to 1.1 billion people, since 2006.

"More serious risk factors are associated with this current outbreak than (the two) previously encountered, including that the affected areas are more widespread and because of proximity to extended border areas," the WHO said.

West Bengal borders Bangladesh, which is also fighting a bird flu outbreak.

More than 36,000 chickens had been slaughtered so far in the three affected districts in Marxist-ruled West Bengal, where poverty is rampant.

State officials said chickens were still on sale in the affected areas despite a ban, and New Delhi has called in paramilitary troops to prevent birds being smuggled out.

Attempts to fight the outbreak have been frustrated by a lack of cooperation from local people angered by what they said was inadequate compensation for the dead birds.

"In some areas, villagers are feasting on dead chickens and are reluctant to disclose if there are any chickens or ducks in their backyards," said West Bengal health services director Sanchita Baksi.

Also, chicken were still being sold in the badly hit Margram village, 240 kilometres (150 miles) from the state capital Kolkata, and locals were unwilling to show their poultry to culling teams.

"The chickens are the only source of income for us," poultry owner Moti Bibi told AFP.

Locals said the government offers of compensation were not enough and would take too long to arrive.

Some 30 million rupees (US$770,000) had been set aside to compensate poultry owners.

"We'll be caught in a debt trap," said Bibi who had borrowed money for his chicken farm in Margam.

The state government aims to slaughter 400,000 birds in a five-to-10 kilometre (three-to-six mile) radius of the affected areas and has said the process could take at least another six days.

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.

Wild migratory birds have been blamed for the global spread of the disease, which has killed more than 200 people worldwide since 2003. - AFP/ch

Bird flu spreads to new districts in India's east
Bappa Majumdar, Yahoo News 20 Jan 08;

Bird flu spread to two new districts in an eastern Indian state, officials confirmed on Saturday, as veterinary staff struggled to cull thousands of birds in the face of resistance from farmers.

The H5N1 virus was found in dead birds in Burdwan and Nadia, taking to five the number of infected districts in West Bengal state.

The virus was also spreading to new areas within already infected districts.

India, which is witnessing its fourth bird flu outbreak in poultry since 2006, has not reported any human infection.

Officials said they were immediately extending culling operations to the newly affected areas. West Bengal began culling more than 400,000 chickens and ducks in three districts this week.

So far, only about 50,000 birds had been culled.

"This news is indeed distressing and we are looking to intensify culling in both districts from tomorrow," Anisur Rahaman, West Bengal's animal resources minister, said.

But containment efforts continued to be hampered because farmers insisted that their chickens and ducks were healthy and refused to hand them over for culling.

Scant respect for hygiene among poor and illiterate villagers was also a stumbling block, said veterinary volunteers who collected dead birds dumped in village wells and ponds by villagers ignorant about the risks from the H5N1 virus.

Rahaman asked health workers to intensify an awareness drive.

Health workers were watching for people with flu symptoms in the affected areas.

The virus has killed more than 45,000 chickens and birds in West Bengal in the past two weeks.

Bird flu has begun taking a toll on India's poultry business with Oman banning the import of all Indian poultry products. Domestic sales have also been affected.

(Writing by Krittivas Mukherjee)