INDIA: India prepares to contain bird flu outbreak as poultry sales drop 25-30 percent

Record ID: 1376977

  • Title: INDIA: India prepares to contain bird flu outbreak as poultry sales drop 25-30 percent
  • Date: 22nd February 2006
  • Summary: (EU) NEW DELHI, INDIA (FEBRUARY 21, 2006) (ANI) (SOUNDBITE) (Hindi) SHARAD PAWAR, INDIA'S FARM MINISTER, SAYING: "The responsibility given to the animal husbandry department to destroy the chickens might be over by today. That is what I hope."
  • Embargoed: 9th March 2006 08:01
  • Keywords:
  • Location: India
  • Country: India
  • Topics: Health,Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA16FDUHNO4AM94BUPQUIIST961
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: As bird flu maintained its relentless march across the globe with Malaysia and Hungary the latest countries to report outbreaks, the Indian government said the culling of chickens might end on Tuesday (February 21).
    "The responsibility given to the animal husbandry department to destroy the chickens might be over by today. That is what I hope," Sharad Pawar, India's federal farm minister told reporters in New Delhi.
    Earlier, the minister said the media should not create disproportionate hype about the issue as it might severely affect the rural economy.
    Sales of poultry products have already fallen 25 to 30 percent in India since an outbreak of bird flu was first reported in the western state of Maharashtra at the weekend, an industry official said on Tuesday.
    At least 15 nations have reported outbreaks in birds this month, an indication that the virus, which has killed more than 90 people, is spreading faster.
    However, federal Animal Husbandry Secretary PMA Hakeem, said India is ready to contain and eliminate the spread of the virus.
    "The disease can spread from poultry to animals particularly to pigs, equines and then it can go to any animal including human.. So people who are closely working with poultry can get infection otherwise they cannot. So people with human influenza like H6 or so, such person if he handles birds hybridization will take place maximum," said Hakeem.
    So far, there are no confirmed human cases but thousands of people have been tested just in case. Laboratory reports on the first group of people quarantined were expected late on Wednesday.
    Health authorities said it had found no case of human avian influenza after "preliminary" tests on a dead farmer earlier suspected to have been the country's first human victim of the disease.
    The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Monday mutations in the H5N1 virus are seemingly making it more deadly in chickens and more resistant in the environment, but without yet increasing the threat to humans.
    But scientists say the virus has already developed the ability to infect more species of animals and the fear is H5N1 could eventually mutate to pass easily from human to human.
    "The disease can spread from poultry to animals particularly to pigs, equines and then it can go to any animal including human.. So people who are closely working with poultry can get infection otherwise they cannot. So people with human influenza like H6 or so, such person if he handles birds hybridization will take place maximum," said Dr. J. Gopal, a scientist working in southern Bangalore city.
    In India, 10 people have been quarantined as officials scrambled to contain a major outbreak of bird flu in poultry before it took hold in the world's second most populous nation.
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