April 17, 2007

Bird flu spreads in Bangladesh

Bird flu was reported in two more farms in Bangladesh despite efforts to contain the disease, fisheries and livestock ministry officials said on Monday (Apr 16).

A farm was found to be infected at western Jessore district while the other was at Savar near Dhaka, where the bird flu was first detected last month, a ministry spokesman said.

Jessore district is adjacent to the West Bengal state of India. Bangladesh also shares a border with Myanmar, which is fighting the disease, although it is not known for certain how the disease reached Bangladesh.

So far 79,000 chickens have been culled on 32 farms since the detection of the virus on six farms at Savar last month.

The government said it would compensate 70 taka (US$1.0) for each chicken culled.

No humans have tested positive for the disease in densely populated Bangladesh.

Bangladesh has 125,000 small and large poultry firms producing 250 million broilers and six billion eggs annually. About four million Bangladeshis are directly or indirectly involved in the poultry industry.

Experts from the UN's FAO have arrived in Bangladesh to investigate the recent rash of bird flu incidents and recommend measures to contain it, an FAO official said Monday. 

The 10-member FAO team arrived in Dhaka over the weekend and will visit affected farms and laboratories and interview farmers and government specialists over the next two weeks.