Asom bans poultry from Manipur, Nagaland

Guwahati, July 27 (UNI) Asom today banned import of poultry and poultry products, including feeds, from neighbouring Manipur and Nagaland after outbreak of bird flu in Manipur.

Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory sources here informed that all the border areas had been alerted, especially the three districts of Barak Valley, closest to Manipur.

Import from Nagaland through Karbi Anglong district was also banned as infected poultry could find its way into the state from Manipur, sources said.

About 1000 personall protective kits and sample collection veils were dispatched to Cachar and North Cachar Hills districts today, and similar arrangements had been made for three other towns sources stated.

'' We are maintaining surveillance and any report of mass death of birds would be dealt with urgently, '' sources said and also informed that arrangements for Elisa testing for detecting bird flu had been made at the laboratory here and the software was likely to arrive on Monday.

A team of four doctors had been trained specially for this purpose and once the testing facilities were ready, the initial test could be done in Guwahati itself.

Sources said all preventive measures had been adopted and an alert sounded.

A Central rapid response team had been formed to oversee the awareness drive in the state.

Even though 60 per cent of poultry and poultry products were brought in from outside the state, yet Asom did not import these from Manipur.

Moreover, 80 per cent of the broiler consumed in the state was local produce.

'' There are 1.43 lakh chicken and 60 lakh ducks in the state, besides 50,000 broiler farms, '' Animal Husbandry department sources said adding, '' Local birds in Asom have strong resistive capacity and are unlikely to get infected easily. '' UNI