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Bird flu knocks at Kolkata’s door
Tribune News Service & PTI

Rs 3,000-cr package?

New Delhi: With a view to provide rehabilitation package for the poultry sector, the centre is likely to come out with a Rs 3,000-crore aid for the poultry farms owners in West Bengal, CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said here today. — UNI

Kolkata, January 27
Birdflu today spread to two more districts of West Bengal, South 24 Parganas and West Midnapore, taking the number of affected districts to 13 out of a total 19 even as the state government said it was fully prepared to face any kind of adversity if any human being is found afflicted by the dreaded disease.

The affected area in South 24 Parganas is in Budge Budge, which is barely 15 km from Kolkata.

Authorities of the two districts confirmed the spread of the avian flu and the slaughtering of birds would begin tomorrow.

West Midnapore district magistrate N.S. Nigam said samples of chicken sent from Chakbelcha village in Debra block of Kharagpur subdivision had tested positive. In South 24 Parganas, the disease tested positive in Budge Budge, district magistrate Sanghamitra Ghosh said.

The disease spread to Baro Khalasamari at Mathabhanga block in affected Coochbehar district where bird flu had already hit four villages.

In the affected district of Howrah, flu spread to Panchla in addition to Sankrail and with the detection of fresh cases in another block, barely 10 km from here.

Meanwhile, the first suspected bird flu victim, Suraj (9), a Nepali boy at Naxalbari, who was admitted into the isolation block at Naxabari subdivisional hospital on January 22, had been found missing from the hospital.