Less than just three months of being declared as bird flu free, the dreaded disease has again struck India and this time the epicenter is Khargram block of Murshidabad district of West Bengal.
Samples of dead birds collected from the Murshidabad district by the Bhopal-based High Security Animal Disease Laboratory have tested positive for H5 strain of avian influenza
The central government has issued instructions to the state to cull all poultry within a three kilometresradius of Nagar and Hazrabati villages in Khargram block.
?In addition, surveillance will be carried out over a further radius of 10 kilograms,? an official communiqu? said.
Surveillance throughout the state has also been intensified to stop the spread of the disease.
Centre has also issued necessary instructions to the state to take all possible precautions and measures as per the laid down guidelines to stop the spread of the disease.
Meanwhile, state officials said culling of bird in the affected area has started from Thursday night itself.
The district administration have also set up additional beds in Khargram and Khandu areas of the district to stop the spread of disease in human beings.
In 2008, India reported an outbreak of bird flu disease from Birbhum and Dakshin Dinajpur districts of West Bengal after traces of the H5N1 were found in the domestic poultry firms.
Within weeks, bird flu cases were reported from Nadia, Burdwan, Murshidabad, Bankura, Coochbehar, Birbum, South 24 Parganas, Hoogly and Malda.
The outbreak was termed as the worst case of bird flu in the country.
Health officials suspected that chickens and eggs illegally transported from Bangladesh, which itself has been reeling under its own outbreak of Bangladesh could have been responsible for the spread of disease to India.
The virus later spread to Tripura, which also borders Bangladesh and Myanmar.
In total, around 41 outbreaks of bird flu were reported from the two states between January and April, the worst being in West Bengal.
Almost 1,15,717 birds died in the disease and government culled more than 4.32 million birds to control the spread of the disease.
India, reported the first outbreak of bird flu from Maharashtra in 2006.
Since then, Gujarat, Manipur, West Bengal and Tripura have also time to time reported the highly dangerous H5N1 outbreaksas a result, the scarehad hit sale of the poultry products.
