Bird deaths reported in Aligarh, culling ops over in Mah

New Delhi, Mar 20 (UNI) The government has culled over 91,000 chicken and provided compensation of over Rs 21 lakh to poultry owners in a bid to check the spread of bird flu in Jalgaon area of Maharashtra while large scale deaths of birds have been reported from Aligarh.

In a statement here, the animal husbandry department said that the news of large-scale mortality of birds was reported form Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. The area was visited by the State Veterinarians.

Deaths are reported from one poultry farm in Dhorramaphy, Aligarh.

Heavy mortality has been indicated by the owner of the farm over the last three days. The present diagnosis is of pneumonia of bacterial origin. The birds were treated with antibiotics and appear to have responded well to that treatment as the mortality has reduced drastically on 20th March, 2006. The samples had been sent to Veterinary University, Mathura and HSADL, Bhopal. No unusual mortality has been reported from the neighbouring farms.

Meanwhile, culling operation has been completed in all the four operational areas demarcated by circles of 10 km radius each around the four initially affected villages in Jalgaon district of Maharashtra. Compensation of Rs 20.84 lakh has been fully paid for 91,161 birds killed in operations.

House to house mopping up will continue for next couple of days to rule out possibility of any birds left out from culling operations. This is necessary because sometime the birds are kept by villagers in the hutments situated outside the villages mostly on agricultural farms.

Other than the RRTs for culling, another sixty teams are engaged in disinfection of the area and houses. The strategy is to disinfect all the houses in the 3 km radius by spraying. Damp patches are being disinfected by spreading DDT powder/bleaching powder. The area quarantine norms are proposed to be relaxed from 21st March, 2006. Members of RRTs have been put on seven days quarantine after completion of culling operations.

It has been clarified by the District Authorities on the basis of report of team of Veterinary Officers deputed to assess the situation that no heavy toll of mortality has been reported from Jamner, Parola, Pachora and Bhadgaon in Jalgaon district. In one broiler farm viz Piyush broiler farm, Pachora mortality was reported (110 birds dead out of 14,800) which is assessed to be largely due to mismanagement. Samples have been drawn from these areas and sent to HSADL, Bhopal.

UNI AJ RP DB2024