Central team in Kerala to review bird flu outbreak
KERALA/NEW DELHI A threemember central team arrived in Kerala on Thursday to review the situation arising out of the bird flu outbreak in Alappuzha and Kottayam districts, officials said.
The team comprising Union health ministry’s public health specialist Dr Ruchi Jain, Pune National Institute of Virology scientist Dr Shailesh Pawar and Delhi RML Hospital physician Dr Anith Jindal held discussions with district authorities at the collectorate here, the officials said.
A similar team was dispatched to Haryana’s Panchkula on Wednesday after there were reports of the bird flu from poultry samples from the district.
According to the state government, over 69,000 birds, including ducks and chicken, were culled in the affected districts till Wednesday to arrest the spread of bird flu.
The department of animal husbandry on January 4 notified the detection of Avian Influenza (H5N8) in samples of ducks found dead in Kerala.
The outbreak was initially reported in four panchayats of Nedumudi, Thakazhy, Pallippad and Karuvatta in Kuttanad region of the Alappuzha district and Neendoor in Kottayam district.
State animal husbandry minister K Raju has said there is no history of the H5N8 virus being transmitted to humans even as authorities banned the sale of bird meat and eggs in the affected regions.
To provide relief to the affected farmers, the state government has decided to compensate them for culling their birds.
Meanwhile, four crows were found dead in Gujarat’s Mehsana district on Thursday, while an alert was sounded in the state, officials said. The crows were found dead in the premises of the famous Sun Temple in Modhera village of Mehsana.
The carcasses have been sent to a Bhopal-based laboratory to check if they died due to bird flu or some other reason.