Bird Flu Outbreak In Chhattisgarh Prompts Officials To Kill 15,000 Birds

A poultry farm in Koriya district in Chhattisgarh has reported an outbreak of the highly contagious H5N1 bird flu virus, prompting the authorities to kill over 15,000 birds and destroy over 30,000 chicken eggs.

The World Organisation of Animal Health announced the outbreak on January 9 , citing a report from the Ministry of Fisheries and Animal husbandry.

The virus has killed 5634 out of the 21,060 birds on the poultry farm in Baikuthpur town in Koriya. The authorities have claimed that they are inspecting all the birds from the farm within the radius of 10 km reported Hindustan Times.

"H5N1 is a type of influenza virus that causes a highly infectious, severe respiratory disease in birds called avian influenza [or "bird flu"]," according to information on the World Health Organization website.

The WHO further mentioned that the human cases of H5N1 avian influenza occur occasionally, and it is difficult to transmit the infection from one human to another. But once a person is infected then the mortality is about 60 per cent.

Almost all cases of H5N1 infection in people have been associated with close contact with infected live or dead birds, or H5N1-contaminated environments.

Dr RS Baghel, Koriya Veterinary Department Deputy Director told the media person said last year after the death of 58 birds, samples were sent to local laboratories for testing but didn't find anything.

The samples were then sent to Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh, where the doctors suggested the death was caused by respiratory disease. However, when the medicine for the respiratory disease did not work, the samples were sent to National Institute of High-Security Animal Diseases, where, on December 23, the tests were positive for the H5N1 virus reported, Scroll.in.

Dr Baghel said that no human has been affected due to the virus so far and no complaint of bird death has been reported for a few days. However, the surveillance will continue for the next three months.

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