Bird flu at Kolkata's doorstep, 11 districts affected

Font Size -

Agencies

Posted online: Friday , January 25, 2008 at 06:39:32
Updated: Friday , January 25, 2008 at 06:55:57

Kolkata/ New Delhi, January 25: Bird flu on Friday appeared right at the doorstep of Kolkata with two more districts of West Bengal, Purulia and Howrah, falling prey to the deadly virus that has now spread to more than half of the state.

Expert teams were accompanied by police force at many places in culling operations in view of resentment among many villagers fearing loss of livelihood.

The High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal confirmed avian influenza (H5) in samples from Sankrail block of Howrah district and Santuri block of Purulia district, an official statement in Delhi said.

The virus has now spread to more than half of the state's 19 districts. The 11 districts affected by bird flu are Birbhum, South Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Nadia, Burdwan, Bankura, Malda, Coochbehar and Hooghly, Purulia and Howrah.

The samples from Mayureswar-II and Khoyrasole blocks of Birbhum district and Kandi block of Murshidabad district have also tested positive for avian influenza, it said.

Official sources in Kolkata said at least 10 lakh chicken have been culled in the nine affected districts while 1.46 lakh eggs have been destroyed till January 24.

At least 901 rapid response teams were deployed on Friday in the state for carrying out culling and surveillance operations.

Confirming the deadly H5N1 virus in Purulia, District Magistrate Deepak Ranjan Kar said the avian flu surfaced at Ramchandrapur village under Santuri block in the district.

Elsewhere in the state, expert teams had to seek help from police force at many places in culling operations. The force was sought to thwart any untoward incident, particularly in view of resentment among many villagers fearing loss of livelihood, Coochbehar District Magistrate Rajesh Sinha said.

Bookmark this Page

What is this?

Digg

On Digg, users share intersting online content by submitting links to the site. At that point, the Digg audience can vote on whether or not they think it is interesting. Articles with lots of votes, or "diggs," rise up higher on the site's main page and topical subsection pages. Another form of social sharing, this site also lets users categorize the content they are submitting to Digg and label it with descriptions of up to 350 characters. Digg users can also submit comments on each content item submitted to the site.

To register, go to: http://digg.com/register

del.icio.us

At its most basic level, del.icio.us allows users to save their bookmarks online. Del.icio.us also gives users the ability to "tag" their bookmarks with descriptive category names. For example, someone who has bookmarked multiple Web pages that deal with the Washington Nationals baseball team could tag those links with any terms they want, like "baseball," "nationals," "natsfan," etc.

As members of a "social bookmarking" community, del.icio.us sers can also see how many other people have bookmarked the same pages, and they can look at those users' bookmark collections to find other interesting online content.

To register, go to: http://del.icio.us/register

Reddit

Reddit allows users to submit news articles and other online content to the site. Users also give articles a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Reddit then uses those votes to build a user profile and to find articles to recommend to you. Users can also submit comments on items posted to the site.

To register, go to: http://reddit.com/login

Digg

My Yahoo

Fark

del.icio.us

Newsvine

Rate this Article

Rating

Post Comments

Name*		Email ID*
Subject*		Country*
Message*	Characters remaining

TERMS OF USE: The views represented here are not neccesarily endorsed by www.expressindia.com and its allied websites. All messages will be moderated and no message that has inflammatory, abusive, derogatory language or any language deemed unfit for publication by the editor will be displayed. Though it will be endeavoured that as many messages as possible be displayed, there will be time lag between the submission and publication of the messages. The website reserves the right to publish or reject any message.

I agree to the terms of use.

Comments - 4

Hide Comments

Show Comments

Hunger Strike in West Bengal to campaign for bird flu control. by himanshul on 26 Jan 2008

Our dear politicians should be bhajan, namaz and ardas etc to pray that the bird flu does not become a human flu as the culling teams which seem like teams of merciless swordsmen sent by hardboiled state agency are viewed with suspicion and lack of any planning or education. It would indeed be heroic if some politicians go on hunger strike to impress upon poor people of West Bengal that this issue is a burning problem which can cause disaster. If this is not feasible, then the solution should be developed by an expert team with full media support and educational campaign.

Reply | Forward | Report Abuse

Bird Flu by Dr.M.S.Sivaraman . on 26 Jan 2008

Affordable homoeopathic medicines can stop the epidemic in its track!I am shouting in wiloderness but who cares!

Reply | Forward | Report Abuse

Bengal should be given to china by Simple Solution on 26 Jan 2008

Bengal should be given to china (bengal's favourite..china will fix bengal) and a high security fence should be constructed to protect India.

Reply | Forward | Report Abuse

Bengal is slowly becoming a big headache for the whole India by Rajat on 26 Jan 2008

CPM (Communal Party (Muslim)) is not only exporting muslims to all over India but now they will export Bird flu also to all over India. Indians are not safe due to CPM. Bengal is slowly becoming a big headache for the whole India.

Reply | Forward | Report Abuse