First report confirms bird flu in West Bengal, Central health teams at Ground Zero

As West Bengal worked on an action plan to contain a suspected outbreak of avian flu in two blocks of Birbhum district...

As West Bengal worked on an action plan to contain a suspected outbreak of avian flu in two blocks of Birbhum district, an Agriculture Ministry official in New Delhi today said the “preliminary report is confirmatory (for avian flu). The outbreak will be declared tomorrow once the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (in Bhopal) sends its report on specifics such as identification of the strain.”

While villagers in Birbhum’s affected Margram area feasted on dead birds, unaware why their poultry was dying, Rampurhat Block Medical Officer Abhijit Roychoudhury said: “We have been informed that after primary screening, the H5N1 virus has been identified. We are taking a number of measures. A medical team is being prepared. Already Tamiflu drugs are here. Now it is up to the Union Government to notify the area as affected by H5N1. After notification, we will take action.”

In New Delhi, Union Health Secretary Naresh Dayal said the Ministry has already sent large doses of the preventive Tamiflu drug to the state. “Samples of the dead birds have been sent to the laboratory in Bhopal. The final report has not come yet, but there is an indication that it may be bird flu,” he said, adding that samples have also been sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune. “If and when we get a confirmation that it is bird flu, that is the deadly H5N1, we will declare an outbreak,” he said.

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The Department of Animal Husbandry in the Ministry issued instructions for setting up a control room and dispatched Joint Commissioner A B Negi to Kolkata to coordinate the culling of birds that will start tomorrow. Birbhum and South Dinajpur districts have reported large number of poultry deaths with Rampurhat II in Birbhum reporting 10,800 dead out of 15,000 affected and South Dinajpur reporting 2,964 birds affected, an official said. One state-run poultry farm in South Dinajpur reported 230 deaths out of 247 affected, the official added.

The Centre sent two experts from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) who met district medical officers in Margram. Although the state government’s alert had reached the district magistrate last evening, the animal husbandry department staff hadn’t fanned out today. Villagers learnt of a possible outbreak only when the media showed up. Officials of the state Animal Resource Development Department had collected samples from from Margram I and Margram II gram panchayat areas under Rampurhat Block II on January 8 and sent them to Bhopal for testing. Last evening, the Bhopal laboratory sent a message to the state government, confirming the presence of a virus though it said more tests needed to be done to confirm if it was the deadly H5N1 strain.

Sunil Kumar Bhowmick, Birbhum Chief Medical Officer of Health, said “preliminary tests have confirmed that this is bird flu, an isolation ward has been opened in Rampurhat hospital.” An estimated 15,000 birds have perished here since December 29. But clearly, no visible steps have been taken to contain the spread of the virus — dead birds continue to litter the area. Margram II’s block livestock development officer Debrup Roy said: “I came to know only today.” The organised poultry sector has not been affected so far but the virus seems to have hit backyard poultry in almost every household of Margram I block. Most farmers rear livestock as well as the free-range ‘desi’ chicken for eggs or for sale in the local market.

Used to outbreaks of the Ranikhet disease, the villagers have been killing the sick birds and cooking them. Kazem Sheik of Begumpara in Margram lost some 40 birds in the last 12 days. “Initially, we had a lot of chicken curry,” said Sheikh. “Now we have only one hen left.”