H5N1 Spread in Murshidabad India
Recombinomics Commentary 22:22
March 9, 2008
District officials confirmed on Sunday the outbreak in 27 villages of Budhra panchayat and another 14 villages and eight municipality wards at Raghunathganj-II block.
Villagers in the affected areas pointed out that thousands of chicken have fallen prey to the deadly virus in the last three weeks.
The culling target at Murshidabad is 50,000 chicken and ducks. "Chicken are dying at Khojardanga, Hyderpur and Elahiganj.
The above comments confirm that the lack of reported H5N1 in West Bengal was due to a lack of testing. The reports of widespread H5N1 in neighboring Bangladesh raised serious transparency issues. The above comments indicate that birds have been dying for the past three weeks..
India has had serious H5N1 transparency issues for some time. They have yet to report H5N1 in any wild bird, resident or migratory, even though large numbers of crow deaths have been associated with multiple H5N1 outbreaks, and migratory birds have died with bird flu symptoms, including pneumonia.
The lack of testing or reporting will not control H5N1. Similarly, border checks will not prevent the spread of H5N1 by wild birds, which have likely moved H5N1 in regions in India beyond the reported cases in West Bengal.
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