New Delhi - A health alert was sounded across India's eastern Manipur state Wednesday after laboratory tests confirmed that more than 100 chickens had died of avian influenza this month, officials said. Laboratory tests on the chickens that died at a single farm in Chingmeirong village of Manipur's East Imphal district, confirmed that the birds had been infected by the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI-H5) strain, the federal Animal Husbandry Department said.
It was not clear yet if the virus was the deadly H5N1 strain. The N1 profilng was being done and the tests had not yet been completed, sources said.
However, discovery of any outbreak of HPAI is enough to warrant a notification, officials said.
A total of 132 birds died at the Manipur farm over six days beginning July 7, the department said in a statement. All the remaining chickens at the farm had been culled and the area sanitized and disinfected.
So far the disease appears to be localized and limited to the single farm, but poultry in a 5-kilometre radius of the farm would be culled as a precaution and surveillance of a further 10-kilometre radius was being done, the statement said.
There was no report of any human infection so far but those who had come in contact with the infected poultry were being given the antiviral drug Oseltamivir, according to the said. Their health status was being monitored.
This outbreak is the first of avian influenza reported in India this year. The country declared itself clear of the disease after two major outbreaks in 2006. No human cases were reported during those outbreaks.
India's Manipur state, where the latest outbreak is reported, borders Myanmar which has reported bird flu cases in 2007.
The virulent H5N1 strain of avian influenza has killed more than 190 people worldwide since late 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
