Bird flu unlikely to impact poultry exports

The current bout of bird flu won't have any impact on India's poultry as it is limited to just wild birds senior minister from the Central government claimed even as both the Central and National government engaged on a war of words over who should held responsible for controlling the spread.

India annually exports over Rs 750 crore of poultry products mainly to Gulf nations.

Delhi Transport Minister Gopal Rai said that the prime responsibility of maintaining cleanliness and disinfecting the Delhi Zoo, Deer Park and Shakti Sthal rests with the Centre as all three of the areas where dead wild birds have been found fall within its jurisdiction.

"We have told the Centre that the manner in which they are issuing advisories to us they should do the same agencies and bodies under them," Rai told reporters after a meeting with agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh this evening.

He said the government has called another meeting of health officials from both Centre and state, environment and forest officials, officials from the department of animal husbandry and others in the next few days to see when Delhi Zoo can be opened again for public use.

Union Animal Husbandry Secretary Devendra Chaudhary said that Centre has been informing the Delhi government and all its authorities right from the time that they have received confirmation of bird flu that they should take all precautions as per the laid down procedures.

He said as of now there has not been any evidence of transmission of H5N8 virus among human beings and world over wherever this virus has impacted bird population so far it has not had any impact on human health.

He said team of officials from the department of animal husbandry had collected samples from poultry mandis in Nizamuddin to see if there has been trace of infection on chicken and eggs, but so far all reports have negative.

"We had sent 45 samples for testing to the Bhopal-based National Institute of High Security Animal Disease under ICAR and of which 13 have been found infected with H5N8 virus, while tests are going on in the remaining samples," Chaudhury said.

The union health ministry along with the department of animal health has also issued advisory to all states to take all possible precautions including proper surveillance, wearing protective equipment while handling infected bird etc and more advisories will be issued soon.

Meanwhile, Kerala today reported that H5N8 virus has been found in some ducks in coastal Allappuzha districts making it the third states after Delhi and Gwalior to report death of wild and migratory birds in zoo due to this new strain of avian influenza.

It is suspected that the migratory birds which came from Siberia via Pakistan and Delhi, might have brought the virus to coastal Kerala, an official statement said.

The union agriculture ministry's joint coordination committee comprising of officials from environment ministry, agriculture research, Delhi government and others are regularly monitoring the situation.