Fears of human bird flu cases rise in India’s Assam
By Biswajyoti Das
GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - India is sending bird flu experts to the northeastern state of Assam and setting up isolation units to treat up to 90 people showing signs of the virus, health authorities said on Friday.
Health workers have yet to confirm any human cases of H5N1, but they said some patients were suffering from fever and respiratory infections, which are symptoms of the virus in humans.
Veterinary officials in Assam state, which is rich in tea and oil, have slaughtered more than 250,000 chickens and ducks in the past two weeks, after the virus was detected in poultry last month in a village close to Guwahati, the region’s main city.
New Delhi has rushed federal medical experts, including epidemiologists and microbiologists, to the affected areas.
“We have set up isolation facilities to treat those patients,” Himanta Biswa Sarma, Assam’s health minister, said.
“So far none of the patients has a history of contact with infected poultry, but we are taking no chances. If the disease is transmitted to humans it will be a big disaster,” Sarma said.
The medical teams brought supplies of equipment as a preventative measure in case the virus spreads to humans, including 10,000 Tamiflu capsules, 6,000 surgical masks and two ventilators.
Experts suspect the disease was carried by migratory birds who are immune to the virus.
Officials said poultry owners took advantage of a shortage of trained health workers and hid their stock to evade culling and seizure, further complicating the situation.
Another 150,000 chickens and ducks will be culled over the next two days, said a senior veterinary official in the state capital Dispur who did not want to be named.
While no human cases have been reported in India, experts fear the H5N1 virus might mutate or combine with the highly contagious seasonal influenza virus and spark a pandemic that could kill millions of people.
Since the virus resurfaced in Asia in 2003, it has killed more than 200 people in a dozen countries, the World Health Organisation says.
The WHO described the January outbreak of bird flu in neighboring West Bengal state, when more than 4 million birds were culled, as the worst ever in India.
(Editing by Matthias Williams)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Related Posts:
By Biswajyoti Das GUWAHATI, India (Reuters) - Indian authorities will slaughter 200,000 chickens in the northeast state of Assam in the next two days in a culling operation to tackle the threat of bird flu, officials said. Health workers and bird flu experts were monitoring about 100 people who had shown signs of the virus. The patients in
Full Post: Indian state to kill 200,000 fowl in bird flu cull
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - Health and veterinary workers culled poultry in a densely populated eastern Indian state on Saturday after a fresh outbreak of H5N1 bird flu, officials said. The latest outbreak of the virus in poultry is the fourth in the state of West Bengal since 2007. Bird flu first broke out in India in 2006.
Full Post: India’s West Bengal reports fresh bird flu outbreak
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Phyllis Xu YANJIAO, China (Reuters) - China issued a bird flu alert on Wednesday after a woman died of the virus, the first such death in the country in almost a year, and closed poultry markets for disinfecting in a province surrounding Beijing. The World Health Organization said the woman’s death, China’s 21st to date, appeared
Full Post: China issues bird flu alert after woman dies
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HANOI (Reuters) - Bird flu has resurfaced in poultry in northern Vietnam after many months without any cases, killing ducks and chickens at two farms, a state-run newspaper reported on Sunday. Animal health officials confirmed on Saturday the H5N1 virus had killed several birds among a flock of more than 100 ducks in Thai Nguyen city,
Full Post: Bird flu found in poultry in northern Vietnam
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HONG KONG (Reuters) - Hong Kong health authorities raised the city’s avian flu alert to “serious” on Tuesday after some chickens at a farm were confirmed to have the H5 birdflu virus, prompting the cull of 80,000 chickens. The H5 birdflu strain is a low pathogenic avian influenza. Experts fear the more deadly H5N1 strain, which
Full Post: Hong Kong to cull 80,000 chickens after H5 outbreak