# 1574
It's a `forward looking statement', and modified by certain caveats, but David Nabarro, the UN's influenza coordinator says he is hopeful the Indian government can soon quell the outbreak in West Bengal.
INTERVIEW-India's bird flu outbreak coming under control-UN
30 Jan 2008 13:47:47 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Adhityani Arga
JAKARTA, Jan 30 (Reuters) - An outbreak of bird flu in poultry in India's West Bengal state is "coming under control", but authorities still need to break the chain of transmission of the H5N1 virus, the United Nations influenza coordinator said in an interview on Wednesday.
"I would say that it is coming under control," David Nabarro told Reuters, "And the final test of whether it's under control would be whether or not authorities are able to really dampen down the new outbreaks of H5N1 particularly in West Bengal."
Bird flu has spread to 13 of 19 districts in India's West Bengal in the fourth outbreak of the H5N1 strain since 2006, with samples of dead chickens testing positive in two new districts, officials said on Monday.
In neighbouring Bangladesh, the disease has spread to 29 of its 64 districts since March last year despite mass-culling of poultry.
"What the authorities need to try to avoid is the continous transmission of the H5N1 virus so you almost stop noticing the outbreaks," Nabarro said, sitting in his suite in a five-star hotel in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
So the crisis in West Bengal is `coming under control'.
All they have to do now is stop new outbreaks from occuring.
Always a catch, isn't there?
