India, Europe Try To Contain Bird Flu
Indian health officials went door-to-door Monday searching for people possibly sickened by the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, while hundreds of German troops disposed of dead chickens in a desperate attempt to contain the fast-moving disease.
The European Union's agriculture ministers, meanwhile, met to discuss ways to combat bird flu — such as vaccinating poultry — as the H5N1 strain spread to a half dozen EU nations.
The European Union's top poultry producer, France, is among those grappling with its first reported case of bird flu, and the continent's chicken farmers said consumption has fallen, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. And nearly 250 German troops cleared away dead birds from the Baltic island of Ruegen, where the country's first cases of the disease were confirmed in wild birds last week. Tornado jets flew overhead.
With a mass slaughtering in India entering its second day, plumes of black smoke filled the air in parts of now-deserted poultry farms Monday around Navapur, more than 250 miles northeast of Bombay, as farmers burned their dead chickens.
Heavy earth movers also dug deep pits at some poultry farms. Workers have already dumped more than 200,000 bird carcasses along with the gloves, goggles and blue gowns used by health teams. The pits were coated with chemicals, including disinfectant, before being filled in.
In related developments:
The government now plans to slaughter some 700,000 birds within a 1.5-mile radius of the outbreak, said Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh after touring the area. Officials had earlier said a half million birds would be slaughtered.
Deshmukh said 48 poultry farms would be emptied and would remain shut for three months.
Meanwhile, inspectors visited homes and farms surrounding Navapur, a town of 30,000 people, searching for signs of illness and making sure even chickens being raised at private homes were killed and properly disposed of.
"It's like a war — they come in completely covered with masks and goggles and check if the carcasses are disposed properly," said Ghulam Vhora, a member of a Navapur poultry farmers' association.
Since early Sunday, more than 200,000 chickens have been slaughtered around Navapur, a major poultry farming region, where the H5N1 strain of bird flu was found in some of the 30,000 dead chickens. Checkpoints have also been set up to stop people carrying poultry out of the area.
The Indian poultry industry could suffer badly if the virus spreads. India exports some US$84.4 million (euro70.6 million) worth of poultry and eggs annually, mostly eggs and egg powder to Europe, Japan and the Middle East.
"There must be no movement of poultry out of Navapur," said O.P. Tiwari, a health officer in neighboring Surat district.
Local officials near the affected area have reported a 27-year-old poultry farm owner had died of bird-flu-like symptoms, though tests had yet to determine the cause of death.
Samples from at least eight other people hospitalized for flu-like symptoms near Navapur were also being tested and results were expected later this week.
The H5N1 virus has devastated poultry stocks and killed at least 92 people, mostly in Asia, since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. Most human cases of the disease have been linked to contact with infected birds. But scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form that is easily transmitted between humans, possibly sparking a pandemic.
Authorities in India's part of Kashmir on Monday suspended the import of poultry from the rest of the country, and said no infections had been reported in the Himalayan region.
Neighboring Nepal and Pakistan have also banned poultry imports from India, while Bangladesh said it would step up surveillance along its border with India to prevent birds from being smuggled into the country.
Sri Lankan health officials said Monday that the country was at high risk of contracting bird flu because of migrating birds from India. "If we have to be fully prepared, we need all the resources which we are lacking at the moment," said S.K.R. Amarasekara, the chief of Sri Lanka's Animal Production and Health Department.