Jalgaon ready with Bird flu resistant capsules

     Jalgaon (Maharashtra): The Maharashtra government has enough stocks of bird flu resistant Tamiflu capsules to deal the situation arising out of bird flu outbreak here, Animal Husbandry Minister Anees Ahmed said here today. "Currently we seem to have adequate stocks (5,000) of the medicine. We have made a provision of getting more stocks from the centre in case of emergency," Ahmed told reporters. Last month, when the disease first found in Navapur, the current stock of 5,000 capsules was part of the 15,000 provided by the Centre, at that time. "The Health Ministry has provided the State Government with 15,000 anti-bird flu capsules when the disease broke out in Navapur late last month. Of this, 10,000 had been used. The remaining 5,000 capsules have been brought here," Ahmed added. After culling of over 3,000 chickens, the operation has expanded to 10-km radius around the affected areas of the district, planning to kill 35,000 birds in the day. The Health authorities ordered the culling of around 75,000 birds in Jalgaon. In the culling operation yesterday which lasted till 11 pm around 3,368 birds were culled within four hours. According to the local authorities, the culling operations will continue till Friday. While there were no human cases in the area so far, nearly 85,000 people living in a radius of three kilometeres from the affected area have been put under health surveillance. About 16 health teams are also conducting door-to-door health examinations.

     Meanwhile, the control and containment operations in Navapur and Uchchal areas of Maharashtra and Gujarat where Avian flu was notified on February 18, 2006 are nearing completion. In Gujarat, the culling operations have been completed. In Maharashtra's Navapur area, culling has been completed and compensation to poultry farmers has been paid. Eighty percent of the work of disinfection and clean up has been completed. Good number of eggs have also been destroyed in control operations. Other infected materials such as feed, feed ingredients, egg trays, feathers have also been destroyed. Surveillance of poultry has been further intensified within the country.

Poultry farmers seek permission to cull birds

       Pune: As veterinary workers began throttling more than 70,000 birds in Maharashtra, stepping up efforts to contain a second outbreak of avian influenza in poultry, farmers here demanded on Thursday they be allowed to cull the birds in their farms. V.N. Khedkar, chairperson of the poultry association said that after presenting a memorandum to the Deputy Collector of Pune, Suhas Divase that the administration gives them permission to cull the birds. "We have demanded that they allow us to cull the remaining birds, about 75,00,000 birds. We do not have any money to feed them. The birds in this condition will die, which is hazardous for human health. If we kill the birds, the government will accuse us of having killed the birds due to bird flu. We have asked the administration to collect samples of the bird and send them to Bhopal, declare they do not have the flu virus and allow us to kill the birds. We also demand the government pay us a compensation of 50 rupees per bird," he said. Farmers said that they were facing huge losses due to outbreak of the second outbreak of bird flu in Jalgaon district. Several villages in Jalgaon district were affected after four of 22 samples taken from poultry in the hamlets tested positive, central authorities said on Tuesday. Jalgaon is 200 km (125 miles) from Navapur in Nandurbar district, where the country had reported its first brush with the H5N1 strain. Authorities said last week they had contained the virus after culling hundreds of thousands of chicken in Navapur town and neighbouring areas. The farmers said that they have been forced to sell their bird at five to six rupees and now were not in a position to feed them. Officials said they were checking if the latest outbreak -- which occurred in backyard poultry in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra - - was the deadly H5N1 strain that has killed about 100 people, most of them in Asia.

     Health authorities said they were not taking any chances and had sent dozens of medical teams looking for people with flu-like symptoms to every household of the affected area. Hundreds of people in a nearby area have complained of fever. Doctors say they are most likely suffering from dengue fever, a mosquito-borne disease -- but they have sent blood samples for bird flu tests anyway. Hospitals in Malegaon, 140 km from the latest outbreak, have treated nearly 2,000 people in 15 days. Authorities said they had identified four villages spread over 1,100 square km in the Jalgaon area as affected and were killing all birds -- an estimated 70,000 -- within that area. The first outbreak in Nandurbar district had resulted in the loss of millions of dollars to the large poultry industry in India where it is estimated that more than half the 1.1 billion population eat chicken. The livestock industry, which has been reeling under the impact of the first outbreak, said the fresh infection would cripple sales just as things were beginning to look up. The country's poultry industry was hoping to turn around its fortunes this week with the Hindu festival of Holi, when chicken sales normally surge, which was celebrated on Wednesday. India's poultry industry is among the largest in the world. It not only caters to a huge domestic market but also exports eggs and chicken. Industry groups estimate the poultry industry at 300 billion rupees (6.8 billion dollars). Chicken is the staple meat product in India, where the majority Hindu population does not eat beef for religious reasons.

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