Indian Government Steps Up Bird Flu Monitoring

Text of report by Indian news agency PTI

New Delhi, 27 February: Declaring that there was no human case of bird flu in India so far, government Monday [27 February] announced new steps to strengthen nationwide influenza surveillance including setting up of three more high security labs for detecting the virus in human samples.

The new labs would be set up in Chennai, Kolkata and Dibrugarh, Joint Secretary Health Vineet Chawdhry said, adding the decision to set up the three Bio-Safety Level III Labs was taken at the inter- ministerial taskforce meeting held last Friday.

The meeting also decided to allocate Rs six crore in the current fiscal to ICMR to strengthen influenza surveillance network.

Three Regional Disease Diagnostic Labs (RDDL) – in Bangalore, Kolkata and Jalandhar – would be upgraded to carry out bird flu virus testing in animals, Animal Husbandary Commissioner S K Bandyopadhyay said.

This would help reducing testing load for Bhopal lab which is the only lab for testing virus in birds.

Twenty more human samples from Navapur and Uchhal have been tested and all have been found negative for the virus.

“There is no human case as of now, but surveillance for the disease is not being reduced,” Indian Councial of Medical Research director general N K Ganguly told reporters here.

There was heavy door-to-door surveillance in Uchhal where birds were found to carry H5N1 virus, he said, adding the disease had been contained within a small area.

Animal Husbandry Joint Secretary Upma Chawdhry said so far 15 birds have been tested positive for the H5N1 virus since the outbreak.

Nine bird samples were from Navapur while six were from adjoining Uchhal, she added.

On reported bird deaths in Tinsukia district of Assam, she said the birds had died due to Ranikhet disease. However, samples have been desptached to Bhopal.

Culling operation has been completed in the extended surveillance zone in Gujarat. A total of 1.06 lakh birds have been killed in the state where Rs 28.57 lakh has been paid as compensation for the poultry that has been been destroyed.

Of this, Rs 6.62 lakh has been paid as compensation to backyard poultry and nearly Rs 22 lakh as compensation to the farmers.

“Compensation has been shared on a 50:50 basis by both state and central government,” she said.

In Maharashtra, so far 2.89 lakh birds including backyard poultry have been killed. Nearly 13 lakh eggs have also been destroyed.

More than Rs 12 lakh has been paid as compensation to the owners of backyard poultry in Maharashtra.

In all 516 samples have been tested at Bhopal during the week February 20-25, 2006.

Only samples from Navapur and Uchhal have tested positive for avian influenza (H5N1) till now.

All other samples tested at Bhopal are negative.

Meanwhile, Indian Railways issued an advisory to its catering wing to follow some basic guidelines before handling food.