News Post India

West Bengal Gears Up To Combat Possible Bird Flu Attack

Tuesday 15th of January 2008
A door to door inspection of people with suspected symptoms of avian influenza began in West Bengal's Margram village Tuesday amid fears of the return of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus that causes bird flu.

More than 15,000 chickens have died in Margram, about 280 km from here, in Birbhum district in the past two weeks, raising the spectre of a bird flu attack similar to the one in February 2006 in Maharashtra when mass culling of chickens was initiated in Nandurbar district after cases of bird flu were detected.

'We are sending our workers door to door in the affected region to find out if anyone was having fever above 98 degrees or having breathing trouble or is afflicted with pneumonia. After a survey and monitoring we would be able to say if there are probable cases in humans,' Birbhum chief medical officer Sunil Kumar Bhowmick told IANS over telephone.

'We will keep an eye on people who were in direct contact with the infected birds,' he said.

'No confirmation of the H5N1 strain has arrived and so till a confirmation is received culling cannot start,' Bhowmick said.

In Kolkata, West Bengal Health Director Sanchita Bakshi told IANS she is not in the know of the developments.

'I don't know anything,' the health director said.

On Monday, the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal said there was no reason to panic as samples sent from Birbhum had not yet tested positive for bird flu.

The director of the Bhopal laboratory, S.C. Dubey, told reporters Monday: 'There is no need to panic. We have received samples from Margram and Dinapur. Our scientists are conducting tests and it will take six days to arrive at any conclusion.'

He denied reports that either he or his lab had indicated the possibility of the existence of the deadly H5N1 virus in the samples.

'We work according to WHO guidelines and, therefore, are in no position to confirm anything till the entire process has been completed,' Dubey was quoted as saying by an English daily in Kolkata.

West Bengal Animal Resources Development Minister Anisur Rahman said the centre had told the state government that preliminary reports on the samples sent to Bhopal suggested bird flu.

Some samples have also been sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune.

However, Rahman said there is no confirmation yet on whether the deaths were caused by bird flu 'but we have issued a state wide alert'.

'All chickens within a five-kilometre radius of the affected area will have to be killed. The government will compensate the owners,' Birbhum District Magistrate Tapan Kumar Som said earlier.

Selling and buying chickens have been banned in Rampurhat blocks I and II and the Rampurhat municipal area in Birbhum.

In Nandurbar district of Maharashtra in 2006, about a million birds had to be culled after the existence of the H5N1 virus was confirmed.

The virus causes a type of influenza in birds that is highly contagious among them and can be deadly. It does not usually infect people unless they come in close contact with infected birds or contaminated surfaces.