H5N1 Outbreak Fears Thread

India orders cull to tackle bird flu outbreak
by Staff Writers
New Delhi (AFP) Sept 21, 2011


India has ordered the immediate culling of chickens in an eastern part of the country in a bid to contain an outbreak of bird flu.

Outbreaks were confirmed in two villages in West Bengal, which has been severely hit by the virus in previous years, a government statement said late Tuesday.

Samples tested positive for the H5 strain of avian influenza, popularly known as bird flu.

All chickens will be culled within a three kilometre (nearly two mile) radius of the focal point of the infection, the statement said, without giving numbers.

Eggs and chicken feed will also be destroyed to control the further spread of the disease.

The Indian outbreak of flu follows a warning three weeks ago by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation that avian flu was on the rise globally after a five-year decline.

The FAO said a mutant strain of the H5N1 virus was spreading in Asia and outside the continent.

It was not immediately known whether there was any link between the Indian outbreak and the mutant strain detected in China and Vietnam, for which no vaccine has yet been developed.

If it spreads to humans, bird flu can cause fever, cough, sore throat, pneumonia, respiratory disease and sometimes death.

In 2008, West Bengal carried out a massive cull of nearly four million birds to bring bird flu under control.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/India ... k_999.html

December 31, 2011 – CHINA - A 39-year-old man in southern China died Saturday from what appears to be a contagious strain of avian flu, state media reported Saturday. The man — identified by Xinhua as a bus driver with the surname Chen — was hospitalized in Shenzhen on December 21 as he battled a fever. He tested positive for the H5N1 avian influenza virus, the provincial health department said in a statement, according to the official news agency. The man had not traveled out of the city of Shenzhen, nor did he have direct contact with poultry in the month before he came down with the fever, according to the department. Shenzhen borders Hong Kong, where more than 17,000 chickens were ordered culled on the same day that Chen was hospitalized. That decision came after a chicken carcass tested positive for avian flu.

http://theextinctionprotocol.wordpress. ... -h5n1-flu/

Great! contagious bird flu... Great way to start 2012