Centre rushes teams to Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, NE

New Delhi, Jan 20 (UNI) The Centre today said it was rushing health teams to Orissa and Northeastern states for an on-the-spot assessment of the Bird Flu situation, which had resulted in the culling of 1,21,908 poultry birds and destruction of 68,972 eggs in West Bengal in the past few days.

One joint team of the Health Ministry and the Department of Animal Husbandry had already been dispatched to Jharkhand and Bihar, an official statement said.

The move came in the wake of samples sent from Bankura, Nadia, Birbhum and Murshidabad districts of West Bengal testing positive for Bird Flu at the HSADL lab at Bhopal.

Besides the culling, Bird Flu had claimed 98,254 poultry birds in the districts of Birbhum, Dakshin Dinajpur, Murshidabad, Nadia, South 24 Parganas, Burdwan and Bankura (all in West Bengal).

Yesterday, a total of 60 rapid response teams (RRTs) carried out operations in Birbhum district, 33 teams in Dakshin Dinajpur district and 16 RRTs in Murshidabad, the statement said.

Further, 79 samples were sent yesterday to the HSADL from Howrah, South 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Kolkata, Burdwan, Bankura, Nadia, Malda, Pashim Midnapore and Birbhum districts.

UNI SN HS RAI1849