Via República: Capital sees 5th bird flu outbreak in one and half months. Excerpt:
Authorities on Sunday culled all 2,753 chickens in the poultry farm owned by one Dharma Raj Pandit of Nayapati VDC following confirmation of the H5N1 virus.
Of the 3,000 chickens in the farm, the remaining 247 had already died due to the disease. The outbreak is fifth in the last one-and-a-half months in the district, the Directorate of Animal Health (DoAH), said.
DoAH said vets had to struggle hard to persuade the farmer into destroying the chickens. "We even had to take the help of security personnel as the farmer was adamant to allow the cull. Police had to be deployed to take the situation under control," said Narayan Prasad Ghimire, senior veterinarian at DoAH.
He said that a rapid response team has been working to finish the cull by Sunday night. The disease was confirmed on Saturday night after examination of the dead chicken at the Central Animal health Laboratory under DoAH. A meeting of district co-ordination committee led by Chief District Officer Chudamani Sharma on Saturday had decided to kill the infected chickens.
On Saturday the authorities had culled 2,610 chickens and 1,000 kg of chicken feed at Kishior Tandukar´s poultry farm at Jitpurfedi- 1 of the district, following confirmation of the virus.
"In the two days we culled over 5,000 chickens at two farms. Poultry farmers should take extra caution as the disease has been spreading quickly," he added.
Dr Ghimire said that the risk of H5N1 virus spread is high especially during winter. The directorate has urged all poultry farmers to take good care of the fowls. Fowls avoiding feed, standing still with head down and excreting saliva could be suffering from H5N1 virus infection, said Ghimire.
