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Bird Flu News---April 3, 2006

India fears new bird flu cases as latest slaughter ends

MUMBAI - A senior Indian official said Monday he expected more confirmed cases of bird flu in chickens this week despite hundreds of workers completing the latest slaughter of 225,000 birds.

Laboratory results were due soon from samples taken in 100 villages across an area of 1,500 square kilometres (580 square miles), said Bijay Kumar, commissioner of animal husbandry for western Maharashtra state.

Workers were on standby to resume the slaughter if necessary, he said.

Four hundred workers last week began killing chickens after confirmed cases of the H5N1 strain of bird flu were reported from several villages in one district in the state.

We are awaiting more reports. Samples from 100 villages were sent in,?said Kumar. It cannot be that it (H5N1) is just in two different pockets alone; it must be in more.?o:p>

Maharashtra, which includes India's economic centre Mumbai, is one of the country's largest poultry and egg producing areas.

It has been the centre of India's bird flu outbreak, first confirmed in February. No human cases have yet been reported.

There are fears the disease might spread to humans in the country of more than one billion people, where many live in close contact with poultry.

The virus, which can spread from infected birds to people in close proximity, provokes flu-like symptoms in humans. It has claimed about 100 lives worldwide since 2003, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).