Kolkata/New Delhi, January 18
More areas in West Bengal reported death of birds today as Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee described the bird flu outbreak in the state as “very serious”. The fresh bird deaths were reported from Burdwan and Bankura districts.

The Chief Minister said the death of crows and owls in Kolkata’s southern and eastern parts today was normal and that there was no cause for panic. “We will have to kill four lakh birds in the affected districts,” Bhattacharjee said, adding the situation was very serious.

Union animal husbandry secretary Pradeep Kumar told reporters in New Delhi that bird samples from Murshidabad district had tested positive for bird flu on the basis of rapid tests and authorities were considering starting culling operations there.

The poultry in 5-10 km radius of the affected areas would have to be culled and the process would be completed within seven days, he said. In Murshidabad, 10,000 chickens have died since Tuesday, in Burdwan 2,000 in the past seven days and in Bankura 400 sick birds were culled yesterday though bird flu was not confirmed there, reports from the districts said.

In Dakshin Dinajpur district, declared bird flu affected, 6,000 chicken have been culled with 19 teams at work at the district headquarters town of Balurghat and villages that fell within a 5-km radius of a government poultry farm. In Birbhum, another bird flu-hit district, people were resisting the culling operations. The Rampurhat subdivision was the worst affected, government sources said.

There was no report of people being affected, the Chief Minister said, but as a precautionary measure the isolation wards were kept ready in all sub-divisional hospitals. Medical college hospitals of Burdwan, Bankura and East Midnapore districts had also been alerted.

Bhattacharjee said the state finance department had allocated Rs 3 crore for paying compensation to poultry owners, who would not be allowed to do business in the next three months. An alert has been sounded along the Indo-Bangla border at Bongaon.

Meanwhile, a bird flu alert was sounded in New Delhi with all vehicles carrying poultry from the neighbouring states being checked and the sale of chickens allowed only after the required clinical tests.

The World Health Organisation had yesterday warned that the outbreak in the state was far more serious than the pandemics in Manipur and Maharastra. Meanwhile, Qatar has imposed a ban on the poultry products from India.

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu government on Friday said there was no case of bird flu in the state and people could eat chicken and eggs without fear. “People need not have any apprehensions”. — Agencies