Bird flu: MP bans chicken import from southern states
New Delhi: The Centre on Wednesday deployed multi-disciplinary teams in bird flu-affected areas of Kerala and Haryana, while Madhya Pradesh, where crows have died due to the influenza, banned the entry of chicken consignments from southern states for 10 days as a precautionary measure.
Thousands of chickens and ducks were culled in two districts of Kerala to contain the spread of the H5N8 avian influenza strain and Rajasthan reported that bird flu was detected in Swai Madhopur, after Jhalawar, Kota, Baran and Jaipur districts.
Punjab was the latest after Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to put its officials on alert and Himachal Pradesh started random sampling of poultry around a wetland, where 3,000 migratory birds have died since December 28.
Bird flu outbreak has been reported at 12 epicentres in Kerala, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh, and advisories have been issued to contain further spread of the infection in poultry ducks, crows and migratory birds, the Union fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying ministry said.
The current bird flu outbreak is reported barely a few months after India in September 30, 2020, declared the country free from the disease. India notified the first outbreak of avian influenza in 2006.
The ministry said it has set up a "control room" in Delhi to keep a watch on the situation and control measures are being taken as per the guidelines of a national action plan for avian influenza.
The Union health ministry said that the teams have been deployed in Haryana's Panchkula district and in Alappuzha and Kottayam districts of Kerala.
Reports of avian influenza has been received from poultry samples from Panchkula district, the ministry said in a statement, a day after samples were collected from farms by the Jalandhar-based Regional Disease Diagnosis Laboratory (RDDL) in the wake of over four lakh poultry birds dying in the past 10 days.
Two multi-disciplinary teams comprising experts from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), National Institute of Virology, PGIMER Chandigarh, RML Hospital and Lady Hardinge Medical College in New Delhi, have been deployed to the affected districts on January 4 to assist the health departments of the states in implementing the health ministry's avian influenza containment plan.
