Fears Of Bird Flu In Bihar, Killing Of Poultry Birds Underway

Poultry birds are being killed in parts of Bihar two days after a number of deaths of hens, crows and other birds were reported in the state, leading to a panic of bird flu, officials said.

Officials said killing of 15,000 poultry birds was underway in Bihar's Munger.

The systematic killing of poultry birds began after the Bhopal-based National Institute of High Security Animal Disease confirmed bird flu or H5N1 as the cause behind the death of birds in the village.

"More than 2,000 birds were culled in the last two days as a part of measures to contain bird flu that had already spread in two blocks of Munger district," said Shrawan Kumar, animal husbandry officer.

Nearly 3,000 hens died last week at Andhra Chowki village, about 20 km from Bihar's capital Patna. 

Similarly, two dozen crows and equal number of hens were found dead in an orchard in Masaurih block in Patna district and in Sherghati in Gaya district, respectively.

Bird deaths were also reported from Bihar's Bhagalpur and Nawada districts in the last one week.

"Hundreds of hens have died at a poultry farm in a village in Vikram block in the last few days. A team of animal husbandry doctors has visited the site and collected the samples," said animal husbandry director Vinod Singh Gunjiyal.

An official who visited the village said, "Whether the birds died due to bird flu or cold is not clear", adding that their samples were sent to Kolkata for tests.

He said experts were called from Bengaluru's National Institute of Veterinary Epidemiology Disease Informatics, Kolkata's Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory and Bhopal's National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases to check the incidents of bird deaths in Bihar.

The first case of suspected bird flu was reported on December 3 from Gorho village in Munger.