The death of 28-year-old Ramesh Bhai at Surat’s Mahavir Hospital created panic as it was believed it was the first avian flu death in the country. However, government officials had reassuring news on Sunday, when they said the death had nothing to do with avian flu as Bhai had not been exposed to poultry in anyway.‘‘The person died of acute respiratory distress. He was admitted in the hospital on February 12 and died five days later. The patient had no exposure to poultry and did not even have a backyard farm at his house,’’ said Dr N K Ganguly, Director General, ICMR.While six people who reported symptoms of upper respiratory infection have been admitted to the hospital, another is under observation. Those admitted include six children and a woman. ‘‘They are stable and none of them has pneumonia. The test reports will come only after around three days,’’ said Dr Shiv Lal, Director, National Institute of Communicable Disease (NICD), Delhi, which is the nodal agency for avian flu in the country.Meanwhile, Health Ministry officials have collected a large number of blood samples from within 3 km of Navapur in Nandurbar and sent them to laboratories for testing. ‘‘Fifty-one samples have been sent to the National Institute of Virology at Pune, while we have received 44 samples at NICD,’’ said Lal.The ministry has deputed a high level rapid response team to the Nandurbar area. A team from the Centre and two from Maharashtra are being assisted by 30 teams of health functionaries in conducting house to house surveillance to detect people suspected to be infected. Culling is on. ‘‘Today 45 teams were deployed and 15 are in full readiness,’’ said Upma Chaudhury, joint secretary, Animal Husbandry. These teams would start vaccination of poultry once the culling process was over.According to her, the animal husbandry and transport ministers of Gujarat and the are member of Parliament interacted with the poultry owners of the Navapur area on Sunday morning. ‘‘The farmers have assured they will co-operate with the control and containment operations,’’ she said.Animal Husbandry Secretary P M A Hakeem held a high-level meeting in Mumbai today with state officials of Maharashtra and Gujarat to take stock of the situation.
