# 1680
Last year, when it mainly affected backyard chickens belonging to hapless poverty stricken people in the back country, bird flu wasn't high on Bangladesh's list of things to solve.
Since at least March of 2007, the virus was allowed to spread virtually unchecked. Small culls were performed, but containment efforts were half-hearted at best.
Now the virus has crept into the capital city, Dhaka, and is reportedly rife in 43 (that we know of) of Bangladesh's 64 districts . As we've seen in other nations, once the H5N1 virus gets a foothold in a region, it becomes extremely difficult to control.
This report from Xinhua News.
Culling of 149,453 chickens completed in Bangladesh's capital
www.chinaview.cn
2008-02-18 20:25:05
DHAKA, Feb. 18 (Xinhua) -- Bangladesh health workers completed culling around 150,000 chickens at a poultry farm in capital Dhakaas the bird flu ravaged the country's growing poultry industry, said government officials on Monday.
The government took the decision to cull the largest ever number of chickens Friday night after detection of the bird flu virus in the Omega Poultry Farm Limited that had 165,000 chickens.
According to officials at the Bird Flu Control Room here, 149,453 chickens of the farm were culled during the three-day drive while the remaining 12,480 died after being affected by the H5N1 virus.
They said the culling started on Saturday evening and completed at about 10 a.m. Monday.
After the sudden death of some chickens at the poultry farm, its staff sent some samples of the dead chickens Wednesday to Bangladesh Livestock Research Institute for test where the presence of deadly H5N1 virus was detected on Thursday.
Later, on Friday night, the government issued orders for culling all the chickens of the farm.
An official at the Bird Flu Control Room told Xinhua Monday that the Livestock Department has so far culled more than 835,000 chickens, ducks and pigeons of 231 commercial farms and 40 household farms in 43 districts out of 64 districts since the virus broke out in March last year.
The government has provided 20 million taka (about 285,700 U.S. dollars) to the affected poultry farm owners as compensation.
In the wake of spreading of the bird flu, panicked people in urban areas stopped eating chickens, ducks and eggs while most restaurants have taken chicks out of their menus. Prices of chicks and eggs have also come down heavily.
According to a rough estimate, the bird flu caused a loss of 50billion taka (about 714 million dollars) to poultry industry.
