Commentary
H5N1
Spread to Malda West Bengal
Recombinomics Commentary
21:42
December 12, 2008
A panchayat leader said the “chickens got drowsy and died”. Villagers complained of dead birds being dumped all over. “Children are playing with them.”
The above comments strongly suggest H5N1 has spread to West Bengal. Malda is a border town and is about 30 miles from the confirmed H5N1 in Naogaon, Bangladesh (see updated map). Last season, there was extensive culling in Malda (see 2008 map). It was one of the first confirmed locations. Meghalaya had warned of H5N1 in multiple locations in West Bengal and Bangladesh, and recent reports have confirmed the warning.
Thus, even though an alert has been sounded for West Bengal, and chickens are dying, there is no testing and dumped dead chickens are increasing the risk off spread to people and wild birds. This response is similar to the delays and minimal testing last season in West Bengal.
The outbreak this season is considerably earlier than the record breaking outbreaks in India and Bangladesh last season, but the daily reports of new outbreaks in Assam indicate that more reports will be filed soon in adjacent regions in India and Bangladesh.
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