From rxpgnews.com
Fresh bird deaths in West Bengal as culling continues
By IANS,
Feb 5, 2008 - 6:57:33 PM
New Delhi, Feb 5 - At least 130 birds were found dead in West Bengal as culling continued in the avian flu-hit state and neighbouring Assam Tuesday.
Till Tuesday, a total of 3.51 million poultry birds had been culled, animal husbandry officials in New Delhi said.
In West Bengal, 130 birds were found dead in the districts of Murshidabad, South 24-Parganas and North 24-Parganas, taking the toll of birds from avian influenza to 132,883.
However, no new case of bird flu was reported from anywhere else in the country, officials said.
The latest poultry samples sent to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal from Bareilly and Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh had not indicated presence of virus, said a statement here.
The samples were sent for examinations after it was found that the poultry consignment in these areas had come from bird-flu hit West Bengal.
Following a central government directive to cull birds in a five kilometre belt along the borders with Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa states as a preventive measure, Assam continued slaughtering birds for the second day Tuesday.
'Of the target of 89,254 birds required to be culled in Dhubri and Kokrajhar districts of the state, 10,022 birds have been killed. The poultry owners are also being paid compensation simultaneously,' the statement said.
However, the department, which falls under the ministry of agriculture and is tackling the situation, said culling in the remaining three states was yet to begin.
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