March 17, 2006

India increases area under bird flu surveillance

The Indian government has stepped up surveillance over a wider area in a western Indian state following a fresh outbreak of bird flu, a senior official of the animal husbandry ministry said Thursday (March 16).

The area under surveillance has been increased to a 200 kilometre radius covering the contiguous states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.

"In a month we have had bird flu in two districts (of Maharashtra), close to each other. So we have developed a more detailed surveillance plan," said Upma Chowdhry, joint secretary of the ministry of animal husbandry.

A second case of bird flu was reported Tuesday from Jalgaon district, located in Maharashtra. Four chickens tested positive for the H5 strain of bird flu, and authorities are still awaiting the results of tests to determine if they have the virulent H5N1 strain.

Chowdhry said the surveillance will be carried out in 38 districts over the next two weeks. In the first phase beginning Saturday, samples will be collected from birds in 18 districts and sent to the laboratory in Bhopal.

Samples from the remaining 20 districts will be collected in the week after that, Chowdhry said.

Currently, control and containment operations are being carried out in Jalgaon district.

"Today, 17,500 birds have been culled," she said. In all 75,000 birds will be culled.

Jalgaon is about 500 kilometres north of Mumbai and more than 170 kilometres east of Nandurbar, where the first outbreak occurred last month.