Bird Flu scare in Bengaluru: Health department officials order culling of chicken

Measures to stop spread of Avian flu are being taken after a dead chicken from a poultry shop in Dasarahalli tested positive

Bengaluru's civic agency officials have ordered for the culling of chickens after a confirmed case of H5N1 influenza, popularly referred to as bird flu, came to light on Monday. Poultry shops in Dasarahalli are being scrutinised and sanitised after one dead chicken tested positive for the flu.

A confirmed case of the H5N1 virus was reported at Dasarahalli near Yelahanka in Bengaluru. Health department officials of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) have begun culling of birds in all poultry shops within a one-kilometre radius of the stall where mass deaths of chickens were reported in December. Civic agency officials collected samples from a stall after the owner complained of mass deaths. The same was sent to the National Institute of High-Security Animal Diseases, Bhopal. The results of the tests have indicated that one of the dead birds tested positive for the H5N1 virus. Following the incident, all chicken stall int he vicinity were shut down. Culling process has been initiated to stop the spread of the virus.

BBMP officials are also scrutinising stalls in wholesale meat markets across the city. Officials are now in the process of tracing where the chickens were bought from. The government, meanwhile, has issued a notification declaring an area of one-kilometre radius from the chicken centre at Bhuvaneshwari Nagar in Dasarahalli as an infected zone and an area of 10 km radius as surveillance zone.

Bengaluru last reported cases of bird flu in October 2012.

OneIndia News