Avian flu in Manipur confirmed

In a development with serious ramifications for North Eastern states, the Central Government today confirmed outbreak of bird flu in Manipur following detection of cases of avian flu in Chingmeirong Village in East Imphal district of the State. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has rushed a team of Central Rapid Response Team, while the Department of Animal Husbandry has ordered culling of 1.5 lakh within 0-5 km of the detection site, said Secretary Animal Husbandry, Charusheela Sohoni.

The Central Rapid Response Team held discussions with the State Government. A micro action plan has been drawn up. The 21 family members in a cluster of three houses and nine veterinary staff who got exposed to the infected birds have been put under Oseltemvir Chemoprophylaxis.

While 4.5 lakh people living within 0-10 km radius have been put under surveillance. An estimated 3-lakh people are living within 3-7 km radius, the official said.

At least 40 medical teams have been given a target of covering 100 households doing house-to-house search for influenza like illness, officials here said.

At least 5000 capsules of Oseltamivir, 2000 sets of personal protective equipments, 1000 sets of N-masks and two ventilators have been airlifted to Imphal, official added.

The saving grace is that it has not spread to human being, with the officials here maintaining that no resident in the neighbourhood are suffering from influenza like illness.

Officials here suspect that neighbouring countries of Myanmar, Bangladesh and South East Asian countries may be the culprit.

The cases were detected early this month when 132 birds died, and another 12 of which another died later, were bought by the Government for tests and these too were culled after samples were collected for test, the Secretary said.

The samples were then forwarded to the high security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL), Bhopal and National Institute of Virology, Pune for testing.

Samples were tested positive for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) (H5) as per report of HSADL, Bhopal and (NIV), Pune as per specified regimen of tests, she said.

There is no other report of unusual mortality or sickness in the neighbouring area; the districts of East and West Imphal, the entire state of Manipur and any other place in the North-East.

In view of the positive results given by two laboratories including HSADL, Bhopal and NIV, Pune, India is required to notify the outbreak of HPAI to the global community through the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) (World Organization of Animal Health).

Such notification is also required to initiate the control and containment operations for avian influenza. Accordingly, outbreak of avian influenza has been notified in Chingmeirong, East Imphal District on July 25, Sohoni said.

The situation is under control particularly in view of the fact that the outbreak appears to be confined to one small poultry unit, she said

Assam gears up to meet bird flu threat

Meanwhile, Assam claims to be well prepared to meet any eventuality of bird-flu outbreak. The State Veterinary Department appeals to the common people that they should not panic with the news of the outbreak of the disease in neighbouring Manipur, nor they should abstain from consuming the State’s own poultry products. Moreover, the Department is of the firm belief that consumption of properly cooked poultry meat, meat products and eggs is not harmful or cannot transmit the disease to those who consume these products.

The State Veterinary Department has 324 trained doctors and para-veterinary staff and with them 65 Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) have been formed for meeting any possible occurrence of the disease.

Stating this here today, Deputy Director, Poultry Dr Kanakeswar Bordoloi told this newspaper that the State Veterinary Department is fully equipped to provide RRTs with the personal protective equipment (PPE), which include disposable mask, goggles, hand gloves, shoe, clothes etc. It has 1,460 PPE today and of these 650 are meant for direct handling and another 650 are meant for indirect handling. The PPE at the disposal of the Department also include 40 fogging machines.

Already, a central RRT has been formed with two groups and each of the groups comprise three officers trained in Bhopal-based High Security Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (HSADDL) and the Pune-based Western Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory.

The PPE are despatched to all the districts by now and arrangements are on to send additional PPE to NC Hills and Cachar districts, Dr Bordoloi said.

There is a good stock of the medicine oseltamivir phosphate, which is available in the form of Temiflu 75 mg capsules, required for treatment of the disease, with the Government of India. The State is sure to get adequate quantity of the medicine whenever needed, said Dr Bordoloi.

Meanwhile, the Khanapara-based Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory of the Department is on a preventive surveillance campaign, which includes faecal and blood sample collection of the poultry and sending them for confirmation tests to the Bhopal-based HSADDL and the Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory, Kolkata respectively. The tests are conducted since October, 2005. All tests conducted so far on the faecal and blood samples of the State poultry are found to be negative, said Dr Bordoloi.

Veterinary doctors, para-veterinary staff and forest personnel of 19 districts have been trained to tackle any eventuality of the outbreak of the disease. Deputy Commissioners of the districts have also been kept on alert to stop movement of birds—that is, ducks and fowls, products based on their meat and eggs and their feed as soon as the outbreak of the disease is reported from any part of their respective districts.

Directions have also been issued to stop movement of birds, products based on their meat and eggs and their feed from other states and countries from where the outbreak of the disease is reported to the State or through the State, said Dr Bordoloi.

The Department is conducting a mass awareness campaign since February last as soon as the outbreak of the disease was reported from neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar. Bio-security measures, like maintenance of hygiene and cleanliness have been asked to be rigorously adopted to prevent outbreak of the disease in all categories of duck and fowl farms, including the ones run by the Government, he said.

Meanwhile, the Government of India has been holding an emergent meeting today at Kolkata with the representatives of the NE States to discuss the issue. State’s Veterinary Director, District Veterinary Officers of the five districts of Cachar, Karimganj, Hailakandi, Goalpara and Dhubri have also been asked to attend the meeting, Dr Bordoloi said.

Joint Commissioner (Animal Husbandry and Dairy) of the Ministry of Agriculture Dr AB Negi visited the city last Monday in connection with the outbreak of the disease in Manipur. He also visited Manipur, Dr Bordoloi said.

1.6 lakh fowls to be culled in Manipur

Manipur Government began culling 1.6 lakh domesticated fowls following outbreak of avian influenza (bird flu) from samples from a private farm.

All the chickens and other domesticated birds within the radius of five kilometres of Chingmeirong area near here would be killed to prevent spreading of bird flu.

The government would compensate poultry owners and it was estimated that about Rs 60 lakh would be spent for this, they said.

About 5,000 chicks and adult chickens at government-run central poultry farm at Mantripukhri at the outskirts of Imphal would also come under knife along with 1.6 lakh birds being reared at private poultry farms.

Outbreak of bird flu had earlier been confirmed from samples from a private farm at Chingmeirong by high security animal disease laboratory at Bhopal and National Institute of Virology, Pune, sources added.

Sohoni said on July 14, the Centre received information that 132 birds died in unusual circumstances in the village in East Imphal district and immediately rushed a team.

Out of the remaining 12 birds at the farm, samples from 11 birds were taken as one bird died subsequently, she said, adding the samples were sent for testing to High Security Animal Disease Laboratory of Bhopal and National Institute of Virology, Pune.

“While the H5 virus has been confirmed, any presence of N-type would be clear by this week-end,” she said.

Last year, when India reported outbreak of bird flu strains of H5N1 were found in the samples.

Regarding the cause of the outbreak, she said there was no concrete evidence to say about any particular reason at this point. “We are not excluding any possibility for the outbreak,” she added.

The 1.5 lakh birds to be culled would be from 128 poultry units in a radius of five kilometre from Chingmeirong village. Strict surveillance would be maintained over units falling under 5-10 km radius, the official said.

As an international obligation, India is required to report to World Organisation of Animal Health if there is an outbreak of bird flu. Any outbreak of bird flu puts the country automatically in the negative list from where poultry products could not be exported.

Currently four countries — US, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan – have imposed import restrictions from India and more countries could follow suit after the latest incident.

Rapid action teams move in
Bird flu surveillance has been stepped up in Manipur to prevent the spread of the epidemic to periphery areas as well as to humans. Around 40 Rapid Response Team (RRT) headed by a medical officer each conducted the surveillance programme with a target to cover 60,000 households (3 lakh population).

“So far we’ve screened 10,251 persons, there is no sign of infection” said P Vaiphei, Secretary, Health Services, Manipur. Meanwhile, though the progress of culling domesticated fowls is encouraging on the second day following the outbreak of avian influenza in Manipur, the authority is yet to find out the source of the outbreak.

“It’s hard to find out the source as yet”, said Dr Th Dorendra, Director, State Veterinary and Animal Husbandry department. The owner of the Chingmeirong poultry farm where the bird flu case was detected denies the allegation of illegal import of fowl from neighbouring Myanmar which had faced the the first outbreak of the deadly H5N1 Bird flu virus in March last.

Dr Negi, an official of Union Agriculture Ministry, said, “it’s difficult to say”. Another senior State official, Dr P Rajendra shared a similar opinion.

The outbreak was confirmed in Manipur’s Chingmeirong poultry farm in Imphal East district on July 25 where around 132 chickens suddenly died within six days from July 7. However, lack of manpower, proper coordination among the government machinery and opposition of the general public hindered culling of domisticated fowls.

“However, we managed to cull 16,000 fowls and still counting”, said Dr Dorendra. Authority here is targetting to cull 1.6 lakh domisticated fowls across the 86 villages in greater Imphal area including 40 in Imphal West district to control the epidemic. So far they have managed to cover around 32 villages. When asked, Dr Dorendra said, “we don’t have a closing target as we need to cover as soon as possible”.

‘Outbreak of bird flu was feared 10 days back’

Though the outbreak of bird flu in Manipur has been confirmed after the samples which were sent for testing turned out to be positive on Wednesday, the fear of the outreak had spread after the sudden death of 132 fowls at a chicken farm at Manipur’s Chingmeirong area in Imphal West district ten days ago.

However, the officials couldn’t confirm nor deny it due to the non-arrival of the result of the test of the samples which were sent to the High Security Animal Diseases Laboratory at Bhopal and the National Institute of Virology at Pune.

Without delay, the State authority announced its decision to slaughter all the chickens within a radius of five km in Imphal city by paying necessary compensation. The slaughtered chickens would be accumulated near the TB hospital, Chingmeirong near Imphal.

Around 1,800 protective uniforms have arrived here on Wednesday. Meanwhile, officials with the help of the State police have launched a massive drive to seize the chickens from the retailers and farmers in and around Imphal.

In view of the development, some retailers closed down their shutters for the day. Seizing of chickens were reported from Kanjabi machin in Imphal. The two government hospitals –RIMS and J N Hospitals have set up ‘special cells’ to handle any emergency . Two Government of India officials including a Joint Commissioner in Union Agriculture Ministry have been camping here since July 15, in the wake of the rumour of the outbreak.

Officials here said this is the third report of bird flu in India. The first and second outbreak were reported in Maharashtra last year when affected areas were sealed for sometime as a precautionary measure.

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