Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Bird Flu Outbreak in Chickens in India

Priyanka Bhattacharya, Mohuya Chaudhry write:
There is a red alert in West Bengal after the confirmation of the outbreak of deadly bird flu in Birbhum district of the state.

The highly pathogenic H5 N1 strain has already killed over 25,000 chickens. This is the third outbreak of bird flu since 2006.

Margram in Birbhum is the second largest village in Bengal with a population of one lakh people. It is now the ground zero of the deadly flu.

Every home in the village rears chicken since poultry is the main livelihood. But now villagers are struggling to come to terms with avian influenza.

According to the agriculture ministry, around a 102 villages in Birbhum and a state run poultry farm in South Dinajpur districts have been affected with the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.

1 comment:

Carley said...

Thanks for your insightful comment.