West Bengal: H5N1 keeps spreading

Via Reuters, more bad news to end the weekend: Bird flu spreads in east India as culling slows. Excerpt:

The deadly bird flu virus spread to a new district in eastern India, as authorities said on Monday villagers' resistance to culling operations and poor health awareness was slowing efforts to stamp out the disease.

The H5N1 virus was found among dead birds in Bankura district of West Bengal. Now six of the 19 districts in the communist-ruled state have been infected with the disease.

Around 20 million people live in these infected areas.

The virus was also spreading to new areas within already infected districts and the state was finding it difficult to contain the disease.

"There are difficulties and the virus is moving from one place to the other," Sanchita Bakshi, the state's health services director told Reuters.

"We have to take emergency measures now to tackle the situation," she added.

Culling of poultry came to a halt on Sunday in many places as Muslims, observing the first Muslim month of Muharram, refused to hand over birds for culling.

Only 125,000 birds were culled since last week and officials said they would need more time to slaughter over 500,000 birds.

Many farmers were still dumping dead birds in lakes and ponds, ignoring repeated warnings by health workers.

"The villagers are unaware of the dangers and were using bare hands to hold sick birds, which is dangerous and can potentially spread the disease further," health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra said.

India is yet to report a human infection, but health workers were watching for people with flu symptoms in the affected areas, officials said.

As I've mentioned, we know more about this outbreak thanks to the freedom of the Indian media. But even allowing for the silence of other hot-zone countries, this looks to me like the most rapid spread of a B2B H5N1 outbreak that we have seen since 1997.