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India Bird Flu Outbreak Portends Pandemic

January 30, 2008

An epidemic of avian influenza in West Bengal, India has the Indian “government in panic mode”, according to the Times of India Web site.

And with good reason: 15 million of West Bengal’s 80 million people are crammed into its capital city, Kolkata (Calcutta), which is a petri dish of poverty, pollution, political intransigence and hopeless public health. It is the city where Mother Teresa founded the Missionaries of Charity order.

If the infection reaches Kolkata’s poultry markets, there is a much greater risk of animal-to-human transmission than there has been in Indonesia or Vietnam, where infections of H5N1 influenza have already crossed species from animals to humans.

There have been many more human infections of highly-pathogenic influenza in Indonesia (120 cases, 98 deaths) and Vietnam (102 cases, 48 deaths) than in India. There were three outbreaks of avian influenza in India in 2006, but there have been no human deaths there, yet.

India To Cull 2.7 Million Chickens

India will cull as many as 2.7 million chickens by Jan. 30 to rein in bird flu, as the disease spread to 13 of 19 districts in West Bengal state.

Authorities culled 1.9 million chickens as of yesterday after the outbreak was reported earlier this month in the eastern state, federal Animal Husbandry Secretary Pradeep Kumar said in New Delhi today.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed about containing the disease,” Kumar said. “There’s a need to convince people about the necessity of culling.”

As many as 125,283 poultry birds died in the state after the outbreak, Kumar said. The decline in the natural mortality of the birds because of avian influenza is a “good sign,” he said.

Rainfall in the state had prevented the culling of potentially infected birds, Kumar said. The government will give importance to the “mopping up and disinfection” operation once the culling is over, Kumar said.

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Written by admin · Filed Under Disease & Pestilence 

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