India looks for avian flu in humans, to cull birds

By Krittivas Mukherjee

MUMBAI (Reuters) – Health workers went door-to-door looking
for people with flu-like symptoms in western India on
Wednesday, a day after the country reported its second outbreak
of avian influenza in chicken.

Officials said that they were checking if the latest
outbreak — which occurred in backyard poultry in Jalgaon
district of Maharashtra state — was of the deadly H5N1 strain
that has killed about 100 people, mostly in Asia.

“We are not taking any chances and are straightaway going
for a household check to see if there are any people with
flu-like symptoms,” Vijay Satbir Singh, Maharashtra’s most
senior health official, told Reuters.

“If need be, we are ready to quarantine people with
flu-like symptoms in local hospitals,” he said.

Health workers carrying kits used for collecting blood
samples visited houses asking families with poultry if anyone
had fever, cough or cold, Singh said.

After the first outbreak last month, also in Maharashtra,
India tested more than 100 people for bird flu but all proved
negative.

In the latest outbreak, several villages in Jalgaon
district, in northern Maharashtra, were found affected after
four of 22 samples taken from poultry in the hamlets tested
positive, federal authorities said on Tuesday.

Jalgaon is 200 km (125 miles) from Navapur, where India
reported its first brush with the H5N1 strain. Authorities said
last week they had contained the virus after culling hundreds
of thousands of chicken in Navapur town and neighboring areas.

A similar exercise to cull between 75,000 and 100,000 birds
in Jalgaon over the next two days was planned.

“We are marking out the affected region after which we will
begin culling. There might be a slight delay because today is a
festival day. Culling can begin tomorrow,” said Bijay Kumar,
Maharashtra’s animal husbandry commissioner.

Large parts of India are closed for a holiday on Wednesday
to celebrate Holi, the Hindu spring festival of colors.

NO NEED TO PANIC

Authorities said the area of the second outbreak appeared
bigger than the first one, but there was no need to panic.

“There wasn’t much commercial poultry activity in this
area. We will cull all poultry within a 10-km (6-mile) radius
of each of the affected villages,” Kumar said.

The first outbreak had resulted in the loss of millions of
dollars to the large poultry industry in India where it is
estimated that more than half the 1.1 billion population eat
chicken.

The bird flu virus has spread rapidly since the beginning
of February, killing birds in at least 16 new countries.

Scientists fear it is only a matter of time before the
virus mutates into a form that passes easily among people,
triggering a pandemic. Millions could die and economies
crippled for months if that happens, they say.