January 22, 2008

 

Bird flu outbreak worsening in Bangladesh

 

 

An outbreak of bird flu among poultry in Bangladesh is far worse than the country's government is reporting, experts warned Tuesday (January 22, 2008).

 

"Bird flu is now everywhere. Every day we have reports of birds dying in farms," said leading poultry expert and the treasurer of Bangladesh Poultry Association M.M. Khan.

 

"Things are now very very serious and public health is under danger. The government is trying to suppress the whole scenario," Khan said, adding that farmers were also holding back from reporting cases.

 

The comments came after the government reported a series of outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu last week in several southern and northern districts of the country.

 

"The situation is far worse than before. There were huge outbreaks in the past weeks and the disease is now more widespread than before," an expert at an international agency said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

 

Bangladesh reported its first outbreak of H5N1 in February 2007, after thousands of chickens died in a state-owned farm.

 

Since then the deadly disease has been detected in 26 out of the country's 64 districts, prompting authorities to slaughter at least 355,000 birds and destroy more than 300,000 eggs.

 

The head of the government's livestock department, Sunil Chandra Ghosh, admitted the situation had worsened in the past week with the onset of winter.

 

"The intensity of the bird flu has increased with the arrival of winter. There was no detection of the flu several months in late 2007, but the situation has worsened in the last week," Ghosh said.

 

He added, however, that he believed the virus was being contained.

 

On Sunday alone, police and local health officials destroyed nearly 10,000 birds in two districts.

 

Bangladesh is one of the world's most densely populated country, with nearly 1,000 people living per square kilometer.