Tripura tightens vigilance along Bangladesh border following bird flu scare

The Tripura Government has tightened vigilance along its 856-kilometre long border with Bangladesh to stop movement of poultry products in the wake of the death of about 500 chickens in a commercial poultry farm in the state.

Agartala, Aug 5 : The Tripura Government has tightened vigilance along its 856-kilometre long border with Bangladesh to stop movement of poultry products in the wake of the death of about 500 chickens in a commercial poultry farm in the state.

The state government has asked the Border Security Force (BSF) to seal the border as a precautionary measure.

"(We have informed) the Inspector General, BSF, to keep vigilance and instruct the personnel posted along the international border, so that no illegal migration or influx of birds (takes place) or poultry products could enter the state," said S.K. Mitra, nodal officer of the state's bird flu and surveillance team.

He added that the customs department and the field officials of the animal resource development department have been asked to keep strict vigilance at important check posts and other areas on any mortality among ducks and poultry birds.

Authorities here have sounded an alert after about 500 chickens were found dead in a commercial poultry farm in Chebri bordering Bangladesh, where avian flu has spread to a number of areas this year.

The birds died in a farm in the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Krishi Vigyan Kendra poultry farm at Chebri in Khowai sub division of West Tripura District.

The state's veterinary officials have started testing birds and feces samples in households and farms across the state to check for the H5N1 strain of the avian flu virus, whose outbreak has also been confirmed in Manipur.

The dead chicken blood and tissue samples have been sent to Bhopal for testing, but officials said they suspected the deaths to be caused by infectious bursal disease, a parasitic illness found in animals.

The deaths were reported in the last three days.

The incident of bird flu has badly affected the poultry market and the prices of chicken have been slashed.

Nikhil Paul, a casual staff of the Krishi Vigyan Kendra poultry farm, who also owns a small poultry, said: "The reports of bird flu in Tripura badly affected the small poultry owners as they donot get even the half price for their stock."

Tripura has around 11,000 small poultry farmers and chicks are mostly imported from Kolkata.

Special dresses have been sanctioned for the poultry workers and disinfectants are spread at suspected areas.

A high level meeting was organised at the State Secretariat on Friday to review the situation. Team of the State Government bird flu surveillance group visited the poultry firm from where the abnormal deaths have been reported.

Manipur had last week sounded an alert after bird flu was confirmed there. Again in Bangladesh, 34 case of outbreak of bird flu has been recorded with the last incident in July last at Denajpur.

Meanwhile, 51 people have been quarantined in Manipur following an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of influenza in chickens last month.

Hundreds of cullers were involved in killing nearly 300,000 fowl over the past week in the state bordering Myanmar that saw two instances of outbreak of bird flu in chickens in July alone.

The Centre has already alerted Mizoram to check illegal smuggling of hens from across Myanmar.

Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh share borders with Myanmar.

The Centre on Friday said that there were no suspected human cases of bird flu and the situation in Chingmeirong village in Manipur, where the outbreak of the bird flu was confirmed on July 25, is now completely under control.

Health teams consisting of 597 health personnel have covered monitoring 44,475 houses with an approximate population of 2.32 lakh.

ANI