# 1567
This is the kind of story that, quite frankly, could mean absolutely nothing at all.
In the winter months, tens of millions of people come down with fevers and IlI's (Influenza-like Illnesses). It isn't a surprise that many people in and around the culling areas of West Bengal should display such symptoms.
But it is worrisome.
Without testing, it is nearly impossible to tell Bird Flu from ordinary flu, particularly during the early stages. Often bird flu is initially mis-diagnosed as Dengue, Chikungunya, Typhoid, or CA-pneumonia.
It takes sophisticated, time consuming, and expensive lab tests to confirm H5N1.
The laboratories in India are reportedly overwhelmed with backlogs of samples. Some of the districts that are culling birds have yet to get back `official' tests showing their birds are dying from H5N1. While officials say they are testing human samples, it isn't clear how many they are testing, and how long it will take to get the results.
So when a newspaper runs a story highlighting more than 600 `flu suspects', we take notice. The Indian government is apparently taking all of this seriously enough to send a team from their NICD (National Institute of Communicable Diseases) to the scene.
The odds favor most of these cases to being something other than bird flu. Perhaps all of them. But this is how a bird flu outbreak might look, particularly in the early stages, and so it must be investigated and hopefully ruled out.
For now, we watch and wait. And hope that authorities are simply operating with an abundance of caution.
A Hat tip to Crof over at Crofsblog for alerting me to this story.
602 people under flu watch in Malda
OUR CORRESPONDENT
Malda, Jan. 29: A door-to-door survey by district health workers in bird flu-hit areas of Malda has found 602 people with symptoms like fever, running nose and cough.
“We have detected 109 such people within a 3km radius of the affected areas in Chanchol and Harishchandrapur and 493 people within a radius of 3-10km. All of them complained of fever, running nose and cough,” said Radharaman Banik, the chief medical officer of health (CMOH) of Malda.
Outbreak of avian flu among poultry birds has so far been confirmed in Chanchol I and Harishchandrapur I blocks. Now, similar outbreaks are also suspected in Kaliachak I and Kaliachak III.
It is not yet known if H5N1 or the bird flu virus has infected some of these 602 people, but Banik said all of them were being kept under observation.
“We are opening a special ward in the Chanchol subdivisional hospital in case we need to admit any of them and we will also send their blood samples to the Bhopal laboratory,” said the CMOH.
A mystery fever is also stalking Malda town. D. Sarkar, the superintendent of the railway hospital here, said: “We have been getting patients with high fever and chest pains and we are not being able to detect the source of infection. We have sent quite a few patients to B.R. Singh Hospital in Sealdah.”
However, no one has been confirmed with pneumonia, the known symptom of bird flu.
A team from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) in Delhi and experts from the All-India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Calcutta, arrived here today to study the situation.
The team includes NICD joint-director Shah Hossain and G. Sengupta, a microbiologist from the institute in Calcutta. The experts met senior district officials and, according to sources, gave a clean chit to the administration for the manner in which the situation is being handled.
The animal resources development (ARD) department, on the other hand, is getting ready to send culling teams to Kaliachak I and Kaliachak III blocks after birds started dying there in large numbers.
“The central team from the NICD has visited the areas and from the manner in which poultry birds are dying there, the experts are certain that it is a bird flu outbreak,” said Arunima Dey, subdivisional officer, headquarters.
All the nine block development officers in the Malda Sadar subdivision, including those of Kaliachak I and III, have been told to hold meeting with the panchayat pradhans and create awareness among villagers.
“We are also sending blood samples to Bhopal,” Dey said.
The subdivisional officer added that the Kaliachak blocks were adjacent to Bangladesh and the virus could have spread from the other side of the border.
