From rxpgnews.com
West Bengal bans poultry trade state-wide to check virus
By IANS,
Feb 5, 2008 - 5:33:41 PM
Kolkata, Feb 5 - West Bengal Tuesday imposed a total ban on the sale and purchase of chickens and eggs to contain avian influenza though the situation has been brought under control since the Jan 15 outbreak and more than three million poultry birds culled.
Senior state health official R.S. Shukla told IANS that since most of the state's 19 districts were affected, the government has decided to extend the ban on selling and buying of poultry and eggs across the state.
'We don't want to take chances, and so we are banning the trade across the state,' he said.
'We have almost completed culling and now mopping up operations are on, but the disease can spread to humans. So, for a certain period we will keep the ban,' Shukla said.
On Monday, Union Animal Husbandry Secretary Pradeep Kumar had said: 'Perhaps the worst is over.'
After reaching the official culling target in all bird flu-hit districts, West Bengal's Animal Resources Development - department is now trying to ensure that poultry hidden by villagers is flushed out and slaughtered, if necessary with police assistance.
On Sunday West Bengal reached its culling target of 3.2 million poultry birds, but the figure was later revised to 3.8 million. The culling had to be extended after reports of a fresh outbreak in some existing bird flu affected areas like Canning Block-II in South 24-Parganas district, some 60 km from Kolkata.
The deadly H5N1 virus has hit parts of 13 of the 19 districts in West Bengal. About 1.8 million people stay in the affected areas.
The affected districts are South 24-Parganas, Howrah, Hooghly, Birbhum, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Nadia, Burdwan, Bankura, Malda, Cooch-Behar, Purulia and West Midnapore.
No human infection was confirmed in the state.
Neighbouring Bangladesh announced an outbreak Jan 3 and the virus has affected 29 of its 64 districts.
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