March 19, 2012

Indian government farm culls 5,000 poultry on bird flu outbreak

About 5,000 poultry were culled at a government owned farm at Gandhigram by a Rapid Response Squad of the Animal Resource Development Department on March 16, where bird flu surfaced in the first week of this month, a top official of the department said.

The outbreak of bird flu was confirmed by the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL) in Bhopal, department director Manoranjan Sarkar said.

All precautionary measures were taken to prevent fresh outbreak of bird flu in the state, Sarkar said.

Sarkar said, over 300 birds were culled within a three kilometre-radius area of government-owned Lembucherra poultry farm in the district, about 20 kilometres from here only in the last week of January this year.

Tripura first witnessed outbreak of avian influenza in 2008. At least 55,000 chicks and ducks were culled at Mohanpur and its adjacent villages of West Tripura district at the time.