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The media has been unusually critical of the government's actions in containing the outbreak in West Bengal. They point to a very slow response, and a lack of organization once they did respond.
Fears are now increasing that this outbreak may be spreading, as villagers reportedly smuggled chickens out of the infected area to prevent them from being culled.
This from The Asian Age.
Bird flu spreads further, many villagers resist cull
By OUR CORRESPONDENTS
Kolkata/Murshidabad/Na-dia, Jan. 17: While the West Bengal government struggled to cull nearly 400,000 birds in avian flu-affected pockets of Birbhum and South Dinajpur districts, the disease spread to fresh areas.
Reports of chickens and ducks dying also poured in from Burdwan, Nadia and South 24 Parganas although the state government has not confirmed bird flu in these districts. A high-level Union health ministry delegation has already arrived in Kolkata while the commissioner of the Central livestock department, Mr S.K. Banerjee, is arriving on Friday. He will hold meetings with West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and other state ministers and officials to review the situation.
The "rapid response teams" of veterinary workers that fanned out to the affected villages faced resistance in several places in Birbhum district. Many poultry owners were reluctant to hand over their chickens for culling, maintaining that they were not infected. Besides, going from door to door collecting the birds also took time. The government has decided to cull nearly 400,000 birds in Birbhum and South Dinajpur districts.
Although the administration claimed that over 25,000 birds had been culled, sources said that less than half of the number had in reality been culled. The government has announced compensation for each bird culled, but the villagers demanded cash instead of receipts that the government officials were handing them. The officials found it hard to convince many villagers that they would receive compensation on the basis of these receipts.
The state government rejected the charge that there was a delay in informing the Centre about the outbreak of the disease. "It is absolutely baseless that we delayed intimating the Union health ministry," state animal resources development minister Anisur Rahman said. He acknowledged that bird flu had spread to KIirnahar in Birbhum and Khargam in Murshidabad districts in the past 24 hours.
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Although the state government is yet to confirm that the mysterious death of nearly 5,000 chickens in Tehatta, in Nadia district, was caused by bird flu, fresh reports of deaths of chickens from other parts of the district have strengthened the bird flu scare in the district.
On Thursday, a team of state livestock officials rushed to Panditnagar, Krishnachandrapur and adjacent villages under Dhubulia block following the deaths of about 1,000 chickens. The district administration confirmed reports of chicken deaths from areas under Tehatta-I, Tehatta-II, Krishnanagar-II and Chhapra blocks.
Dr Amalendu Saha, the deputy-director, state livestock department, Nadia, said, "We have collected blood samples and sent it to IDDL in Belgachia for testing." Blood samples will later be sent to HSADL in Bhopal for "N-typing" to determine the strain.
Although there is no official "notification" about the deadly disease, the Nadia administration has taken all sorts of precaution and has launched extensive awareness campaigns.
