Bird Flu has landed

The lab confirmed the presence of the virus in eight samples of the dozen it received from Nandurbar8212;tests were being conducted on blood samples from dead birds since February 11 after about 40,000 chickens were reported to have died in the area.

The confirmation of the strain came after a committee of experts was formed by the Bhopal lab to examine the samples. The lab tried to match the Nandurbar samples with those received from Bangkok. It was after this test that the lab said the samples were positive.

Since the report of the first outbreak of the disease in 2003, the lab has tested 25,000 samples but has never found the H5N1 strain until today.

While no human cases of the disease have been reported so far, four human samples8212;three children under seven and a woman from Nandurbar8212;are being tested at the National Institute of Virology and another 12 are likely to reach by tomorrow morning. All the four are in hospital under observation after they reported flu-like symptoms.

At Ground Zero, district officials grappled with tough choices: the first, how to cull around 8 lakh chickens, from 7 am Sunday, within 3 km of the 16 poultry farms in the affected zone.

Minister for Animal Husbandry Anees Ahmed refused to elaborate on the method that would be used to kill the affected birds. 8216;8216;One of the options is to use carbon monoxide,8217;8217; he told PTI.

Maharashtra has stopped all trade of poultry emanating from Nandurbar district. The government8217;s priority right now was to prevent the disease from spreading, said Ahmed. Minister of State for Animal Husbandry Hassan Mushrif said that culling will include not just the 16 affected poultry farms but also sick birds in all of the estimated 60 farms in Navapur.

In New Delhi, a high-level meeting was chaired by Cabinet Secretary B K Chaturvedi and was attended by officials from the Ministry of Health, Environment and Animal Husbandry. This committee is likely to meet every alternate day to review the situation.

While no national alert has been issued, the governments of Maharastra and Gujarat have been asked to remain on alert. The Centre is also not considering banning of poultry or poultry products as yet. Poultry from the area, however, has been banned.

Speaking to The Sunday Express after the meeting, Chaturvedi confirmed the arrival of the disease in the country. 8216;8216;Eight samples taken from poultry have tested positive for H5N1 strain. Ranikhet flu which was earlier suspected to be the cause of death in about 40,000 to 50,000 birds in Nandurbar has been ruled out,8217;8217; he said.

According to him, 60 teams of experts are already in the area and a rapid response team of epidemiologists and virologists has also been sent. A control room has been set up by the department of animal husbandary.

India has so far been safe from the disease even though fear of migratory birds bringing the virus to the country was expressed as early as August 2005.

From mid-December 2003 through early February 2004, poultry outbreaks caused by the H5N1 virus were reported in eight Asian nations, Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Japan, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, and China, having killed 91 people and infected 169 besides forcing culling of about 150 million birds.

Most of these countries had never before experienced an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in their histories. The bar-headed gulls were suspected to be the carrier of disease for India.

8220;The outbreak is serious in birds but no human cases have been reported as yet,8217;8217; said P K Hota, Secretary, Health. According to him, the four admitted in hospital are under observation. 8220;They had fever and some respiratory symptoms but their lungs are not affected, so we don8217;t think it is the case of human avian flu. Some more people have been quarantined as a precautionary measure and 12 more samples will reach NIV soon,8217;8217; he added.

The health ministry has already dispatched about 4000 pieces of protective gear for the cullers and staff of the farms and 2000 cycles one cycle: a dose of 10 tablets of Tamiflu. Another 5000 cycles are likely to reach soon.

8220;We already have 75,000 courses of medicine which means 7.5 lakh doses and are ordering another 2.5 lakh doses. But we will wait before administering the medicine in people but cullers will be given the medicine,8217;8217; said Hota.

In Navapur, the local buzz is that two weeks ago, when the first dead chickens were found, nervous poultry farmowners discarded the carcasses in the fields. As the death toll climbed, hatchery owners reportedly started hiding the birds in grain containers and transporting them out of the area. Many poultry farmers on the Navapur-Surat route started burying their chickens.

8216;8216;These are all traditional poultry farms, situated very close to each other and have no bio-safety measures in place,8217;8217; says A M Kelkar, assistant commissioner, animal husbandry department, and in charge of poultries in northern Maharashtra. 8216;8216;Because of the concentration of chickens, the disease has spread so fast.8217;8217;

A six-member team led by Jasbir Singh, Deputy Commissioner, National Communicable Diseases Control and Research Centre, is camping here for the past three days. Director of Health Services Dr P P Doke and Secretary, Public Health, Vijay Satbir Singh, were on their way along with two state government teams.

with Abhiram Ghadyal-patil, Mumbai, and Milind Ghatwai, Bhopal