Two lakh birds culled; people's health check-up starts

Jalgaon, Apr 1 (UNI) Having culled two lakh birds till this evening -- three days after the second outbreak of bird flu in Jalgaon district of the northern Maharashstra, authorities today began health check-up of 1.30 lakh population in 22 villages they had quarantined on Tuesday night immediately after the outbreak was confirmed.

District collector Vijay Singhal said 80 per cent of the culling operation was over by this evening with the slaughtering of about two lakh birds, adding the entire poultry livestock in the 22 villages has been destroyed.

He said now cleaning-up operation has been launched in these 22 villages located in a radius of three kms of Badgaon, Utar, Parora, Varad, Paldhi and Erandol from where samples of dead birds had tested positive for the H5N1 virus.

The Collector said people's houses are being disinfected by spraying sodium hypochloride inside and formalin outside.

He said once the culling was completed in the remaining 266 villages in a range of ten kms from the affected villages, similar disinfection operation would be launched and the estimated five lakh people also examined by teams of health department.

However, no person examined so far has shown clinical symptoms of human influenza, he added.

The authorities had yesterday suspended school examinations in the entire district for a week till April 6 in view of the difficulties faced by students in reaching their centres, particularly in the 22 quarantined villages. The postponed examinations will now be held between April 7 to 17.

UNI XR-SA VD PC2127