Fresh bird flu scare in Bengal

Barely a month after the West Bengal government had announced to have restrained the bird flu virus, fresh cases of the disease have been detected in the Murshidabad district of the state.

Anisur Rahman, animal resources minister of West Bengal has confirmed the outbreak in two villages in the district, Nayamukundapur in Raghunathgunj Block II and Dohapara in Murshidabad-Jiagunj block.

Resurrection of the disease will be yet another embarrassment for the West Bengal government, which is still struggling to compensate the losses due to the previous outbreak.

Another outbreak of bird flu will also come as a setback to poultry owners, who are yet to recover from the earlier losses.

About 900 poultry birds died in the past week in the two areas, and National Animal Research Laboratory in Bhopal has confirmed the unusual deaths due to bird flu.

Fresh culling operations are expected to start soon.

Earlier, Rahman had indicated that the source of the bird flu virus was in Bangladesh. Smuggled poultry from Bangladesh was suspected to be the cause of fresh the bird flu outbreak.

In January, the H5N1 virus had affected 13 districts of West Bengal.

More than 3.4 million birds were culled during the last outbreak, which the World Health Organization (WHO) described as the worst ever in India.

The state had to face Centre's flak for starting the culling operations late and letting the bird flu virus spread rapidly.

Expressing dissatisfaction over the state's ability to tackle the epidemic, Sharad Pawar, Union agriculture minister had said in January, the state government's delay in taking 'appropriate action' led to the rapid spread of avian influenza, and the culling operations were 'slow' in the affected areas.

Recently, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) had warned that intensive surveillance should continue in high-risk areas as the possibility of new outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza were high.