By Prashant K. Nanda and Sujoy Dhar, IANS
New Delhi/Kolkata : India struggled to contain the spread of bird flu to more areas in West Bengal as authorities Friday confirmed the disease had reached Howrah, barely 15 km from the state capital.
“The High Security Animal Disease Laboratory of Bhopal has confirmed positive result for Avian Influenza (H5) in respect of samples from the Sankrail block of Howrah district and Santuri block of Purulia district,” an agriculture ministry statement said in the capital.
Sankrail in Howrah is barely 15 km from Kolkata while Purulia is about 300 km southwest of Kolkata.
Avian flu has spread to 11 districts of West Bengal – Birbhum, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Nadia, Burdwan, Bankura, Malda, Hooghly, Cooch Behar, Purulia and Howrah. However, no human infection has been reported so far. All nine human samples tested in Delhi and Kolkata have been found negative.
With almost half of West Bengal gripped by the deadly bird flu, the state’s poultry industry says it has lost over Rs.1 billion ($25 million) in the past weeks owing to the spread of the virus and sluggish culling operation.
On Friday, authorities in Kolkata said that they had met nearly half the culling target by killing over one million poultry birds in the past 10 days. West Bengal targets to kill 2.1 million birds.
The agriculture ministry further said that avian influenza strains have been found from the samples of Mayureswar -II and Khoyrasole blocks of Birbhum district, the epicentre of the current outbreak, in eastern India.
Samples from Kandi block of Murshidabad too have been found positive.
India confirmed an outbreak of bird flu on Jan 15 in two districts – Birbhum and south Dinajpur.
More than 900 Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) were deployed in West Bengal for culling and surveillance operations.
“I think the state government has messed up the situation by reporting the cases too late. It has failed to control the spread of the disease so far,” said a top official of the central animal husbandry department of the agriculture ministry.
“Now bird flu has reached the doorstep of Kolkata. It will be a great setback for both the central and the state government, if the disease reaches the state capital,” he said requesting anonymity.
Confirming the spread of the disease to Howrah and Purulia, West Bengal Animal Husbandry Minister Anisur Rahman said: “This is worrying indeed but there is no need to panic in Kolkata. Culling operations are going on in full swing.”
“All the infections are among backyard poultry in the two districts, but the areas are not too large,” he said.
The fresh infections have come a day after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed concern over the bird flu situation in the state and asked the health and information and broadcasting ministries to launch a campaign through radio and television.
“There are an estimated 700 million poultry birds in West Bengal. Less than five percent of that is being culled,” Rahman told IANS.
“We have killed more than one million birds by now. We hope to finish the culling in the next five days,” he said.
The minister said the culling operation was almost complete in Burdwan, Bankura and South Dinajpur districts.
A rehabilitation package was being worked out for the affected poultry farmers.
The state government has sanctioned Rs.50 million to battle the flu while the central government has disbursed Rs.35 million. West Bengal has sought Rs.80.25 million more from New Delhi.
Many villagers, however, are unhappy with the compensation.
Reports from Arambag in Hooghly district said close to half the poultry farms have shut shop since the outbreak.
B.K. Farm, the biggest farm in the area, is under the scanner as day-old chicks are supplied all over the country from here.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has described the situation in West Bengal as “serious”.
The H5N1 virus causes a type of influenza in birds that is highly contagious. It does not usually infect people unless they come in close contact with infected birds or contaminated surfaces.