2.65 lakh birds culled; health check-up continues

Jalgaon, Apr 13 (UNI) As many as 2.65 lakhs of the targeted 3.10 birds have been culled in 354 villages of Jalgaon district in northern Maharashtra, hit hard by bird flu for the third time in three weeks, even as authorities today confirmed spread of a viral fever but stated it is unrelated to the H5N1 virus which has afflcited the poultry livestock.

Of the 27 human blood samples sent for analysis to Pune's National Institute of Virology, five have tested positive for the fever called ' chiken guniya' in local parlance. Caused by a certain strain of mosquito, the fever is, however, not related to bird flu, district Collector Vijay Singhal said this evening.

He said no case of human influenza has been reported from anywhere in the disrict so far, adding that teams of health department have examined the entire poulation living in 47 quarantined villages, located in a 3 km radius of the 14 villages which were hit by the third outbreak of avian flu on April 6. Health examination of people living in 307 villages in the 3 to 10 Km range would begin tomorrow, he added.

The fever has been caused by an increase of mosquitoes due to insanitary conditions in the district.

The animal husbandary department had slaughtered 2.40 lakh chickens in 288 villages following the second outbreak of the bird flu on March 28, while 95,000 birds were killed in 174 villages after the first outbreak on March 14.

The country's first outbreak of the avian flu had also occured in northern Maharashtra at Navapur on February 18 and authorities had killed more than three lakh birds and destroyed over 12 lakh eggs.

UNI XR-SA ARB BST2235