DELHI – Authorities in eastern India will start culling chickens and destroying eggs to contain a new outbreak of H5 bird flu, the government said yesterday, as a mutant strain of the virus is spreading elsewhere in Asia.
Surveillance was stepped up in West Bengal, a state severely hit by bird flu in the past. The federal government is pushing local authorities to ban the movement of poultry and its products and is restricting access to the affected area after samples tested positive for H5.
Last month the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said a mutant strain of the H5N1 virus was spreading in Asia and beyond. – (Reuters)