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Bird flu hits Tripura

An alert has been sounded in Tripura after the outbreak of bird flu was confirmed at a state-owned poultry farm at R K Nagar in Agartala,officials said on Saturday.

An alert has been sounded in Tripura after the outbreak of bird flu was confirmed at a state-owned poultry farm at R K Nagar in Agartala,officials said on Saturday. A team of experts from the National Centre for Communicable Diseases (NCDC) has reached the site of the outbreak with sample collection kits to watch out for fever cases in humans.

As the H-5 strain of avian flu was confirmed in poultry samples collected from Agartala,culling started around the three-km radius of the infected farm with more than 3,000 birds being culled on Friday. According to the state authorities,the culling continued on Saturday.

Even as the departments in Tripura are well armed and informed,the Central team of experts has been sent for surveillance. If any fever cases are found,their samples would be sent for examination without delay, said a senior NCDC official.

More than 2,000 chicken and ducks have died in the area since February 3 and blood samples of some of them which were sent to Regional Animal Diseases Diagnostic Centre in Kolkata and High Security Animal Disease Laboratory,Bhopal,confirmed that the samples were positive for the H-5 strain of avian influenza.

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Tripura Principal Secretary for Animal Resource Development,Sriram Taranikant,said as a preventive measures,poultry and egg markets within 10-km of R K Nagar farm were closed,restrictions were imposed on movement of personnel working in the farm,surveillance was being maintained in the farm and adjacent areas were being sanitised.

First published on: 20-02-2011 at 01:13 IST