Last Updated: Monday 18th of January 2010 05:45:00 AM -0600CSTJust when the health ministry was thinking that the country was free from Bird Flu, several new cases were reported from Khargram block of Murshidabad district of West Bengal.
Poultry samples collected from the block tested positive for H5N1 strain of avian influenza. The authorities immediately began culling of birds in the area. A high alert has been sounded in and around Murshidabad following the Bird flu outbreak.
“The Central government has asked the West Bengal government to undertake culling of all poultry within a radius of 3 km from the centre of the bird flu outbreak. Over 3,200 poultry have been culled in bird-flu hit Murshidabad district of West Bengal,” a health ministry official said on Sunday (January 17).
The tests were conducted at the high security animal disease laboratory (HSADL), Bhopal. Though 19 cases of fever had been reported among the people of the region, authorities said none of them had any exposure to sick or dead poultry.
“Unlike H1N1 swine flu virus, H5N1 bird flu virus is highly pathogenic with death rates of those infected with the latter being very steep. Almost 60% of those infected with H5N1 have died,” epidemic medical expert said.
The last outbreak of avian influenza was notified on May 27, 2009, in Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal. After that the country has done well to contain the H5N1 virus and on October 26, had informed WHO for Animal Health that it was free from avian influenza.
“Bird flu kills 60% of its human victims, but doesn't easily pass from one person to another. Swine flu can spread easily through a harmless sneeze or handshake, but kills only a small fraction of the people it infects. But we don’t know what shape the virus will take once both these strains intermingle. It could become a new bug that is both highly contagious and deadly,” a health ministry official added.
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