# 2898
Since the return of the H5N1 virus to north-eastern India in November, authorities there have been waging an almost continual battle against sporadic outbreaks of the disease in poultry.
Assam and West Bengal in particular have been hard hit.
Outbreaks are common enough that they don't make the news every day. Just as in Indonesia and Egypt and the virus appears to be in danger of becoming endemic in this Nepal-India-Bangladesh corridor.
Today, another report of positive H5N1 tests out of Kurseong which is situated in Darjeeling district of West Bengal.
Bird-flu detected in Kurseong, culling to begin today
Siliguri(WB)
Culling operations will begin at Barachenga village in Kurseong sub-division today after samples tested positive for bird-flu, official sources said.
Culling operations will begin this evening, Kurseong SDO Dwibbendu Das told media." Twenty teams have been engaged to cull around 11,000 birds. A control room has been set up at Pintal village, near here", he said. Poultry within a three-km radius area from the village will be culled and eggs will be destroyed, he said.
Chicken death was reported from the village under Panighta block on Thursday following which samples were sent to HSDL laboratory in Bhopal for testing which confirmed the outbreak of the disease this morning.
Areas in the foothills near the plains of Siliguri are the ones which are mainly affected, Das said.
