By NNN-PTI
Agartala, India : The Tripura state government has sounded a red alert across the state following reports of deaths of birds in two other districts besides the avian-flu hit Dhalai where culling operations continued for the third day today.
Import of poultry from outside, including neighbouring Bangladesh, has been prohibited, official sources said.
About 200 poultry and birds died in Neharnagar of Belonia sub-division of South Tripura district during the past one week, while a few crows have died at Katlamara area of Sadar sub-division of West Tripura district in the past three days.
Veterinary doctors yesterday collected samples from dead birds which would be sent to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal today.
Preliminary examinations conducted by state veterinary doctors could not ascertain whether the birds were affected by bird-flu. Symptoms showed that the birds might have been infected by pabrine or ranikhet disease, the sources said.
A high level meeting chaired by Commissioner of State Animal Resource Development, V Venkateswarlu yesterday decided that veterinary doctors would camp in Khowai, Sadar and Sonamura sub-divisions of West Tripura district and in Belonia sub-division of South Tripura district from today.
Altogether 25,000 birds have been culled in eight bird-flu affected gaon panchayet areas of Kamalpur subdivision of Dhalai district since April 8 when the operation started.
A team of doctors from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) have examined 1500 people in the bird-flu affected areas of the district since Tuesday but not no infection was detected, the sources said.