By IANS
Kolkata : West Bengal Wednesday began a massive operation to kill an estimated 378,000 poultry birds in two districts affected by the H5N1 strain of bird flu as chicken dishes became forbidden in most households and eateries across the state.
“We started the culling operation at around 10 a.m. At least 350,000 birds would be culled in Birbhum district and about 28,000 in South Dinajpur district,” said West Bengal Animal Resource Minister Anisur Rahman.
“Our workers have fanned out in the five affected blocks and one municipal area of Birbhum to kill poultry birds in an area of about three km radius. In South Dinajpur’s Balurghat area, the culling would take place in an area with five km radius,” Rahman told IANS.
He added that the government would pay compensation for each bird immediately. “We have already disbursed Rs.10 million for Birbhum district and a proportionate amount for South Dinajpur where the affected area is not as large.”
The border with Bangladesh has been sealed in the affected areas, especially South Dinajpur which shares a long border with the neighbouring country.
As the news about the deadly avian flu spread, prices and demand for chickens nose-dived in Kolkata markets.
A market in Jadavpur area in south Kolkata was selling chicken for Rs.40 per kg, less than half the normal price range of Rs.80-100, but the shops were deserted with no takers for the favourite meat of the Bengalis.
“There is surely a panic. We have hardly sold anything since morning,” a shop owner at Poddarnagar market of Jadavpur said.
“We will not have chicken till the danger is over. We can have mutton and more fish now. In fact, we have stopped having eggs too,” said Sonali Das, a homemaker in Lake Gardens in south Kolkata.
More than 35,000 birds died in the past two weeks in the state.
While most of these were in Birbhum district’s Margram village area, about 280 km from here, there were deaths in Balurghat area of South Dinajpur district, which is about 400 km from this state capital.
Reports of poultry bird deaths also poured in from Murshidabad district, adjoining Birbhum.
On Tuesday, a door-to-door inspection of people with suspected symptoms of avian influenza began in Margram village, the epicentre of the epidemic.
“Our health workers have been fanning out in the entire area,” Birbhum chief medical officer Sunil Kumar Bhowmick told IANS.
Selling and buying chicken has already been banned in Rampurhat blocks I and II and the Rampurhat municipal area in Birbhum.
West Bengal is the fifth state in the country to have been struck by an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu since the first one in Maharashtra in February 2006, and others in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Manipur.
In Nandurbar district of Maharashtra in 2006, about a million birds had to be culled after the presence of the H5N1 virus was confirmed.
The virus causes a type of influenza in birds that is highly contagious and can be deadly. It does not usually infect people unless they come in close contact with infected birds or contaminated surfaces.
Avian influenza experts said speed in extinguishing the outbreak is crucial. The state government will need to prevent the movement of poultry out of the affected area.
WHO had last year declared India “free from bird flu” after the culling of a large number of birds and other preventive measures.