# 2604
Last winter one of the biggest problems local governments faced during the culling operations was a lack of cooperation by many of the villagers asked to give up their poultry.
Some culling teams were physically attacked.
Rather than accept the government' offer of compensation, some people preferred to hide, sell, or trade their chickens . . . most not believing that their chickens were really sick, or that they posed any health hazard to humans.
This winter, we are once again seeing the same pattern in Assam and West Bengal. Resistance and a lack of cooperation by villagers has greatly hampered the culling operations in those states.
Health officials in India are beginning a major public education campaign, in hopes that some of these problems can be eliminated in the future.
This from New Kerala.
Mass awareness campaign on against bird flu
New Delhi, Dec 29 : Indian health officials were beginning a mass awareness campaign to prevent recurrence of bird flu after culling of over 400,000 poultry in the two affected states of West Bengal and Assam.
As many as 421,057 birds have been culled so far in the two states, health ministry officials said Monday.
“We are creating public awareness by telecasting and broadcasting messages through local channels and All India Radio about avian influenza to check the problem,” an official said.
The official said they were also interacting with village people and spreading awareness by making public announcements in the affected areas.
“We are carrying out intensive campaigning by announcements and also through interactions. This is one way of checking that bird flu doesn't spread to new areas,” he added.
"We are scaling up mopping-up operations in those areas where culling activities have been completed in Assam and West Bengal," the official said.
The announcement, that culling has been completed in Assam and West Bengal, seems to go against yesterday's disclosure that bird flu had appeared in 5 new areas of Assam.
We've seen conflicting reports out of India's press before, along with premature announcements of containment.
And one must differentiate, I suppose, between what they actually mean when they say `culling phase' and `mopping up phase'.
In any event, both of these areas deserve close scrutiny over the next few weeks to see if the virus has truly been contained.
