Over four lakh poultry culled in Assam

Guwahati: The spread of bird flu to new areas has led to the need to revise deadlines for the completion of culling operations in Assam.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Saturday informed that seven districts, including 120 villages and 47 municipality wards, had been affected by the disease, so far.

Culling of four lakh poultries had been completed, while 1.55 lakh eggs and 1.23 lakh farm feeds were destroyed, Mr Gogoi added.

It had been targeted to cull five lakh chickens and ducks after the first outbreak of bird flu was detected in Hajo area of Kamrup (rural) district towards the last week of November.

Mr Gogoi said an expert committee had been formed to study the reason of the outbreak, with preliminary findings indicating that migratory birds, which arrived in the state in flocks due to wetlands here, were the carriers of the virus.

He added that another committee would be constituted to suggest ways to ensure that recurrence of such a major outbreak did not happen.

The avian influenza had spread with alarming rapidity across the state within a fortnight, with the state government having to go on an overdrive to ensure that no infection occured in humans.

Although no infection had been detected in human beings so far, the Health Department was closely monitoring for Upper Respiratory Infections (URI), the first symptom of the H5N1 virus entering the human body.

Besides the seven confirmed bird flu-affected districts of Kamrup (both rural and metro), Nalbari, Barpeta, Bongaigain, Chirang and Dibrugarh, preventive culling was ordered in Lakhimpur, Sivsagar and Baksa districts following the unnatural death of poultries.

Though the state government hiked the compensation rates and announced interest subsidy for the poultry farmers, cries of ''inadequate'' compensation were being raised by the All Assam Poultry Farmers Association.

The farmers' body said the poultry industry was incurring loss to the tune of Rs 2.25 crore daily, with the business being exclusively small-entrepreneur-based in Assam. (UNI)