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Culling operations begin in Nadia district

Kolkata: Culling operations began in West Bengal’s Nadia district on Sunday, where according to reports nearly 400 chickens have died from avian flu over the past few days. It is the fourth district, over the past five weeks, to have been hit by avian flu.

The culling operations were carried out in parts of the district that fall within a five km radius of the Mandalpukur area.

“We are a little surprised that the deaths occurred in places beyond a ten km radius of those areas to have been affected by avian flu on the earlier occasion,” Omkar Singh Meena, District Magistrate, told The Hindu over telephone from Nadia district. Blood samples of the dead poultry birds that had been sent for examining had tested positive and the district authorities had received a notification from the State’s Animal Resources Development department on Saturday for initiating steps for culling operations.

“We plan to destroy 21,000 poultry birds during culling which should be completed within three days”, Mr. Meena said.

Prior to the outbreak at Nadia, the districts partially affected by avian flu since early March were Murshidabad, Malda and Jalpaiguri.

The sale and movement of poultry birds and products in places falling within the notified area has been prohibited. The ban will last three months.

All the four districts to be hit by the disease recently were among those where the outbreak had occurred in January-February. Nearly 1.5 lakh poultry birds had then died in the affected districts — more than half of the total number in the State.

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