School Exams suspended for a week in Jalgaon

Jalgaon, Mar 31 (UNI) Three days after the second outbreak of bird flu in Jalgaon district of northern Maharashstra, authorities today suspended school examinations in the entire district till April 6 in view of the difficulties encountered by students in reaching their centres, particularly in 22 villages which were quarantined on Tuesday night immediately after the outbreak was confirmed.

District Education Officer (secondary) S K Pawar said the postponed examinations will now be held between April 7 to 17.

Meanwhile, 82 teams of the state animal husbandry department have culled about 1.25 lakh of the targeted 2.10 lakh birds in the affected area by this evening, according to district Collector Vijay Singhal.

The culling, which began on Wednesay evening, has been first undertaken in 22 villages located in the three km radius of Badgaon, Utar, Parora, Varad, Paldhi and Erandol from where samples of dead birds had tested positive for the H5N1 virus. The operation would be extended to another 266 villages situated in the ten km range of the flu-hit villages.

Of the 2.10 birds to be culled in 288 villages, as many as 72,500 layers will be slaughtered in 16 poultry farms. The remaining are scattered in backyards of village houses.

With the second outbreak affecting six tahsils, the total number of tahsils hit by the avian flu in Jalgaon has gone upto ten. Four were affected during the first outbreak confirmed on March 14, necessiating slaughtering of 95,000 birds in 174 villages. Reports of samples collected from the remaining five tahsils is still awaited from Bhopal's High Security Animal Disease Laboratory.

Earlier in February, more than three lakh birds had to be slaughtered in Navapur in Nandurbar district, also in northern Maharashtra, when India's first outbreak of the avian flu was confirmed on February 18.

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