By IANS
Kolkata : With the bird flu spreading to a seventh district, authorities in West Bengal Tuesday set a target to cull two million poultry amid a false alarm that the virus might have infected five people.
The National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) here has vehemently denied reports of five people being possibly infected by the virus.
“The news of a possible viral attack on five humans is totally baseless. The five samples that were sent for laboratory tests in Pune were all negative and we have sent the report to ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research). A section of the media quoted me without actually speaking to me,” agitated NICED scientist Sekhar Chakraborty told IANS.
But the crisis continues.
Central government officials had confirmed Monday night that samples from Malda district’s Chanchol (Block I), about 375 km from here, had tested positive for bird flu. On Tuesday, the West Bengal government corroborated the news.
“Chanchol is affected by bird flu. The culling operation would begin from Tuesday,” West Bengal Animal Husbandry Minister Anisur Rahman told IANS.
With confirmation of the outbreak of bird flu in Malda, now seven districts in the state are in the grip of the deadly viral infection. The six other districts are Birbhum, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Nadia, Burdwan and Bankura.
About 200,000 poultry birds have been culled in West Bengal since Wednesday to combat the deadly H5N1 strain.
The state had set a target of slaughtering 400,000 poultry but, with the spread of the disease to new areas, the government has decided that at least two million birds should be killed, West Bengal Health Minister Surya Kanta Misra said.
As the spread of bird flu outpaces culling in West Bengal, the deadly virus is taking human lives indirectly.
Reports said 28-year-old Ananda Haldar of Malda district committed suicide Sunday by jumping in front of a train. He was driven to desperation by the fall in sale of chickens.
Ananda had not sold a single bird since the outbreak and was depressed, his elder brother Prabhat said. Ananda had taken a loan of Rs.20,000 from a moneylender to stock up on broilers but the falling sales had left him devastated.
More than a million poultry deaths were reported in West Bengal in the past three weeks.
The state government has allocated Rs.30 million for compensation to those losing their poultry, Rahman said.
Farmers were being handed over tokens at culling sites and asked to contact their panchayat or village block offices for the money. The payment is Rs.40 for a country chicken, Rs.30 for a broiler and Rs.10 for a chick.
The H5N1 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.