Nepal on flu alert, tests poultry on India border

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Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSDEL34404620080429?sp=true
Nepal on flu alert, tests poultry on India border
Tue Apr 29, 2008 1:23am EDT

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal has issued a bird flu alert and is testing poultry along the border with India, where the virus rages despite the culling of tens of thousands of chickens since 2006, officials said.

Nepal, which has not reported any bird flu cases, banned the import of poultry from India in January.

But it shares an open border with the Indian state of West Bengal which has reported repeated outbreaks of bird flu.

"We are always alert, especially in the border areas which have been declared as high risk zones," Baikuntha Parajuli, chief of Nepal's animal health directorate said on Tuesday.

Smuggling of poultry and livestock from India posed an additional threat, officials said.

Nepal has declared six eastern districts "high-risk zones" and intensified vigil on farm and backyard poultry. Ninety chicken samples were being tested.

Test results of some samples had turned negative for avian influenza, the Himalayan Times said, quoting Surendra Yadav, a livestock official in eastern Morang district which has been classified as an extremely sensitive area.

The newspaper said veterinary teams were regularly inspecting poultry and warning people about bird flu.

Experts fear the H5NI virus might mutate or combine with the highly contagious seasonal influenza virus and spark a pandemic that could kill millions of people.

Since the virus resurfaced in Asia in late 2003, at least 240 people have died from bird flu in a dozen countries, the WHO says.

(Reporting by Krittivas Mukherjee; Editing by Bappa Majumdar and Sanjeev Miglani)

 

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Re: Nepal on flu alert, tests poultry on India border

Source: http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fu...&folder=aHaoamW&Name=Home&dtSiteDate=20080516

Bird Flu Alert Sounded in Jhapa

THT Online
Damak, May 16

Jhapa district administration office has sounded alert to prevent bird-flu after the disease appeared in the Indian districts bordering Nepal.
Assistant Chief District Officer Laxman Prasad Hamal said a committees involving five poultry entrepreneurs and a security personnel has been formed in the areas where where veterinary service centres are available.
The committees would spread awareness about the disease and ban import of chicken, ducks, vaccines and food grain according to Assistant CDO Hamal.
He said special measures have been taken to monitoring the possible spread of the disease in the bordering areas like Kakadbhitta, Prithvinagar and Bahundangi of Jhapa.
A team of officials from the Veterinary Service Department has reached the district to check the rising threat of spread of the disease due to importation of bird-flu in Jhapa.
Meanwhile, the Inaruwa temporary police post on Thursday destroyed 50 crates of eggs illegally imported from India on the suspicion of bird flu contamination.
The eggs were seized yesterday were buried underground in the presence of four representatives of the Animal Quarantine Check Post Sirsiya.
Earlier, the police post also had seized 175 broiler chickens and buried them, ASI Buddhi Chaudhary at the temporary police post Inaruwa told this daily.

 

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Re: Nepal on flu alert, tests poultry on India border

Source: http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200805271653.htm

Nepal bans bird sacrifice at two Hindu temples

Kathmandu (PTI): Nepal has imposed a ban on sacrifice of birds at two famous Hindu temples in western part of the country, in the wake of cases of bird flu being detected in Indian districts bordering the area.

The district administration has also banned the practice of freeing pigeons at the Manakamana and Gorakhkali shrines situated in Gorkha district, officials said.

Dozens of chickens and ducks are sacrificed at the temples everyday by devotees who come here from the Terai region in southern Nepal.

Reports of pigeons deaths in the temple area, had earlier spelled fear about the outbreak of the disease, they added.

The police and volunteers have been instructed to keep a vigil on the activities of the birds in the area.

Nepal has issued bird flu alert in eight of the districts of the Terai region bordering India following reports of bird flu in Indian districts bordering the nation.