By IANS
Kolkata : Culling of poultry continued in the new areas affected by bird flu in West Bengal Sunday after samples from Canning near Kolkata tested positive, but officials said there was no case of human infection.
“We have sent our culling teams to Canning block-II and hopefully we would complete the entire process in next two days,” West Bengal Animal Resources Development Minister Anisur Rahman told IANS.
West Bengal Saturday achieved its culling target of 3.2 million poultry birds but the process had to be extended after reports of fresh outbreak in some affected districts.
The agriculture ministry in New Delhi confirmed Saturday that bird samples collected from Canning 2 block of South 24-Parganas district, 60 km from here, had tested positive for bird flu.
The minister also said that the reports of bird flu infections amongst human were not true. Though some animal resources development personnel fell ill after the culling, they all tested negative.
With this, all the 19 people whose blood samples were sent to central laboratories have tested negative, bringing relief to the government battling India’s worst ever bird flu outbreak.
According to reports, a man from East Midnapore district fell ill after returning from culling at Rampurhat in Birbhum district and was kept under special observation at a hospital. His blood samples were sent for tests and results have cleared him as not affected by the virus.
Bird flu was confirmed in West Bengal Jan 15. The affected districts are South 24-Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly, Birbhum, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Nadia, Burdwan, Bankura, Malda, Cooch Behar, Purulia and West Midnapore.
In West Bengal, the H5N1 virus that causes avian influenza has hit parts of 13 out of 19 districts in the state. About 1.8 million people stay in the affected areas.
In neighbouring Bangladesh, which shares a long border with West Bengal, bird flu has affected 29 of the 64 districts. The outbreak in that country was announced Jan 3.