Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

National NetworkIndia strengthens defence against bird flu virus

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • National NetworkIndia strengthens defence against bird flu virus

    India strengthens defence against bird flu virus
    Anuradha Mascarenhas

    Posted online: Monday, June 25, 2007 at 0000 hrs

    Special attention along Bangla border; biosafety labs coming up in Pune, Jalandhar, Kolkata, Bangalore, Guwahati, Bareilly


    Pune, June 24: Alarmed at the increasing outbreaks of bird flu in Bangladesh and Pakistan, the Indian Government has intensified its surveillance along borders and will set up six biosafety laboratories (BSL-3) in the country to strengthen its defence against the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus.
    Since the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has termed the bird flu situation in Bangladesh “serious”—there were six bird flu outbreaks in Myanmar, 16 in Pakistan and 26 in Bangladesh—special attention is being given to the porous 4,000-km border with Bangladesh.

    As the situation gets grim, officials from Bhutan and Nepal have been on a study tour to India to learn how it successfully contained the disease that had struck parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
    “We are surrounded by highly endemic countries and surveillance efforts have been stepped up,” Upma Chaudhry, Central Animal Husbandry and Dairying Department Joint Secretary told The Indian Express. India is on high alert against the H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza, and surveillance measures after the last outbreak in the country have shown an increasing number of samples being tested. “We have tested 1.33 lakh samples after the bird flu outbreak was contained last year,” says Chaudhry, who feels that the only way to contain the disease is by tackling the source.
    While the High Security Animal Diseases Laboratory (HSADL) at Bhopal is the country’s only BSL-4 laboratory, Chaudhry said six BSL-3 laboratories in Pune, Jalandhar, Kolkata, Bangalore, Guwahati and Bareilly would be set up. A BSL-3 lab is suitable for work with infectious agents, which may cause serious or potentially lethal diseases as a result of exposure through inhalation. Supervisors of BSL-3 labs are competent scientists experienced in working with the agents. “We have tied up with the World Bank, which is providing financial assistance for the project,” Chaudhry said. There have been 189 deaths globally from the H5N1 bird flu virus since late 2003 and 310 known infections in total, according to World Health Organisation (WHO) data. Indonesia has recorded 79 human deaths from bird flu, the highest in the world.
    ‘Blame it on poultry trade, not migration’ A comprehensive critical review of recent scientific literature on the spread of H5N1 published in the British Ornithologists Union journal has concluded that poultry trade rather than bird migration is the main mechanism of global dispersal of the virus. The review finds that migratory birds have been widely and repeatedly blamed for outbreaks that have subsequently been found to originate in the movement of live poultry and products such as poultry meat. The authors, French ecologists Michel Gauthier-Clerc, Camille Lebarbenchon and Frederic Thomas of Station Biologique de la Tour du Valat (a research centre for the conservation of Mediterranean wetlands) and GEMI (Génétique et Evolution des Maladies Infectieuses—the Laboratory of Genetics and Evolution of Infectious Diseases) warn that a misdirected emphasis on contacts between wild birds and outdoor poultry may lead to a reversion to intensive indoor poultry rearing, which actually increases the risk of outbreaks. Maybe they better give Germany a call http://www.indianexpress.com/story/160420.html
    CSI:WORLD http://swineflumagazine.blogspot.com/

    treyfish2004@yahoo.com
Working...
X