As the culling operation has been completed in all the 13 affected districts in West Bengal, the state government has banned poultry trade across the state fearing any human influence of virus. This ban is just for a limited period of three months and will be withdrawn as soon as the situation improves, says administration.
A total of 35.17 lakh birds have been culled so far in West Bengal alone with the help of specially engaged group of Rapid Response Teams (RRT). In the final phase 298 RRTs were employed as on Feb 04 which finished culling of around 1.34 lakh birds.
Meanwhile, as per the latest report all blood samples collected by High Security Animal Disease Laboratory, Bhopal, from Bareilly and Shahjahanpur of Uttar Pradesh have been tested negative.
Preventive culling in other states
The Centre has directed all state government bordering West Bengal to cull birds within a radius of five kilometres but that doesn’t seems to go down well with opposition from locals and farmers’ associations.
Orissa
Though Orissa government was earlier against the Centre’s directive to cull birds but later decide to go with the central government’s directives.
The decission was taken after the Chief Minister chaired a meeting with the officials of the state fisheries and animal resource development department.
However, All Orissa Broiler and Integrator Association has urged the Chief Minister to reconsider the decission as the state is yet to confirmed with the case of H5N1 virus. They have also decided to submit a writ petition in the high court. The farmers are not willing to cull healthy birds.
Assam
The officials in Assam have set a target population of 89,254 birds required to be culled in Dhubri and Kokrajhar districts. As of the latest official report 10,022 birds have been culled so far. The state government has also paid good amount of compensation to the poultry holders.
Bihar & Jharkhand
Preventive culling in parts of Bihar in the Purnia district of Bihar have been commenced though any such development is yet to be started in Jharkhand.
Human Influence
No human cases have been confirmed so far in the West Bengal districts and all the 23 blood samples taken from cullers who had reported flu symptoms were tested negative.
However, it was advised to all men involved in the culling process to take adequate measures in terms of their safety.
WHO Chief’s Concern
The new World Health Organisation chief Margaret Chan have described bird flu as a global threat as the number of bird flu cases have been increasing at a alarming rate in developing countries of Asia and Africa.
She also showed her concern for the health care facilities in poor countries and a global effort to develop vaccines to deal with such pandemic.
|
|
Read More: Shahjahanpur
Comments:
