Bird flu in India

Bird flu has been reported in the town of Navapur, the poultry-farming district of Nandurbar in Maharashtra, where some of the chickens have died due to the deadly H5N1 strain. Over the past two weeks, more than 30,000 chickens were destroyed, after officials began slaughtering chickens in a 3-kilometer (1.5-mile) radius around the poultry farms in the town of Navapur where the confirmed cases were detected. Heavy earth movers were used to dig deep pits at poultry farms in Navapur where workers dumped more than 200,000 bird carcasses along with the gloves, goggles and blue gowns used by health teams. The pits were coated with chemicals, including disinfectant, before dirt was shovelled over them. Other farmers burned the chicken carcasses and plumes of black smoke filled the air over the now-deserted poultry farms around Navapur, more than 400 kilometres (250 miles) northeast of Bombay. The government plans to slaughter some 500,000 chickens within a 3-kilometer (1.5-mile) radius of the outbreak. Inspectors are visiting homes and farms surrounding Navapur, a town of 30,000 people, searching for signs of illness and making sure even chickens being raised at private homes were killed and properly disposed of. The National Institute of Virology has directed farmers that if they find more than 2 to 3 chickens dying at one time, they should immediately inform authorities. Farmers had been told to wear gloves and masks to handle dead chickens. The India poultry industry could suffer badly if the virus spreads. Samples from at least eight people hospitalised for flu-like symptoms near Navapur have also been sent for testing to the National Institute of Virology. Globally bird flu has killed 91 humans since 2003, with the bulk of the victims in Asia, but recently fatal cases have been reported in Iraq and Turkey, according to the World Health Organisation. Most of the human cases of bird flu have been through direct contact with sick birds. Scientists fear the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus could mutate into a form that passes easily between humans and spark a human flu pandemic. Indian pharmaceutical company Cipla Ltd. said that a generic version of the drug Tamiflu, thought to be the best prevention against a pandemic, would be available in chemist shops across the country early next week.