March 21, 2008

India expands bird flu culling zone in West Bengal

India's veterinary authorities began killing thousands of chickens on Thursday (March 20, 2008) after expanding a culling operation to stop bird flu from spreading in an eastern Indian state.

A fresh outbreak of bird flu was detected in a district in West Bengal state where about 1,000 chickens had died in the past few days.

A spate of bird flu cases have reduced poultry sales by 70 percent since January even as chicken sales were relatively unaffected in other parts of the country.

India has not reported any human bird flu cases so far.

Besides the district affected, veterinary staff were killing 44,000 chickens and ducks in surrounding areas as well.

In January, the H5N1 virus affected 13 of the state's 19 districts. Some 3.4 million birds were culled by the authorities who claimed to have contained what the World Health Organisation described as the worst outbreak of bird flu in India.

Officials say the virus could have spread from neighbouring Bangladesh which is grappling with a massive outbreak.