Huge cull as bird flu fears hit India

Source: Agencies  |   2008-12-15  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

INDIAN authorities will slaughter 200,000 chickens in the northeast state of Assam today and tomorrow in a culling operation to tackle the threat of bird flu, officials said.

Health workers and bird-flu experts were monitoring about 100 people who had shown signs of the virus.

Patients in six districts of Guwahati, oil and tea-producing Assam's main city, suffered from fever and respiratory infections, symptoms of the H5N1 bird flu virus in humans. But officials have not confirmed any human cases of H5N1.

Health workers have gone house to house in Guwahati looking for more people with symptoms, officials said.

Veterinary officials have already culled almost 350,000 chickens and ducks, destroyed more than 160,000 eggs and thousands of kilograms of poultry feed in Guwahati since last month.

Culling is being expanded to include two villages in Meghalaya, close to Guwahati. The virus was detected in poultry in a village close to Guwahati last month.

Authorities have set a target of about 200,000 fowl to be killed in the region by Wednesday.

"Though no cases of bird flu have been reported in Meghalaya, we are going ahead with culling as a preventative measure," S.F. Khongwir, an official in Meghalaya, said.