February 2, 2012

Bangladesh ruins 140,000 birds, eggs over bird flu detection

Since mid November until January, nearly 140,000 birds and eggs were destroyed by the Bangladesh's authorities when this season's first outbreak of bird flu was detected, an official said Wednesday (Feb 1).

Ataur Rahman, assistant director at the control room of Bangladesh's Fisheries and Live Stock Department, told Xinhua that "Some 67,327 birds, including 12,714 at the latest on Tuesday, were culled in about a dozen flu-hit farms since the middle of November last year."

During the same period, he said, "A total of 69,390 eggs were also destroyed."

An official had earlier said risky factors of bird flu disease usually rise with the fall in temperature during January and February in Bangladesh which is considered a high-risk country with respect to Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) as the South Asian nation of over 160 million people is especially vulnerable to virus perpetuation because of insufficient bio security, rearing of chickens and ducks together, selling of live birds, and deficient disease surveillance.

Bangladesh's poultry farmers during winter season in 2009 and 2010 had suffered to some extent from the outbreak of the disease. The disease was first detected in Bangladesh in a poultry farm near capital Dhaka in March 2007. The situation deteriorated later on as the virus spread fast across the country which was reported in 47 districts between December 2007 and March 2008.