1,000 admitted to hospital in Indian town

Bird flu: Markets closed in four blocks; health checks on
Saturday March 18 2006 00:00 IST
Agencies

JALGAON: To prevent the spreading of avian flu virus outside the four
declared infected zones (blocks) in Jalgaon district, the administration has
quarantined 3-kilometre radius of the area around each of these zones.

‘‘Effort is to restrict transit of infected material to and from these areas
for preventing the spread of virus outside. For this, we have quarantined
the three-kilometre area around each of the infected villages,’’ district
Collector Vijay Singhal told reporters here on Friday.

All bus stations have been shifted outside the three-kilometre radius.
There are 21 bus stands in these zones. Weekly markets have been shut
down temporarily in 19 villages, he said.

From Friday, disinfectants would be sprayed in homes where poultry have
been kept. Health workers have been deployed in the villages to track any
symptoms of bird flu.

‘‘People are also being discouraged from inviting guests or going outside
the infected zone to prevent transmitting the disease,’’ Singhal said.

The Collector confirmed reports of birds dying in villages of Jamner,
Parola, Pachora and Badgaon tahsils, adding samples of the dead birds
have been sent to the high-security Animal Diseases Laboratory in Bhopal
to test the presence of dreaded H5N1 virus, if any.

Earlier, the second outbreak of the bird flu in the state was reported in
four tehsils of Raver, Darangaon, Yaval and Chopada of the district on
Tuesday, nearly a month after India’s first outbreak of the avian flu was
confirmed at Navapur in Nandurbar district on February 18.

The Collector said a total of 45,184 birds had been culled till Friday
morning, including 15,985 in the severely affected 25 villages, located in
a three-km radius. The remaining 29,197 birds were slaughtered in
villages beyond the three-km range but within ten-km radius of the four
villages.

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this whole situation makes me wonder if, in time, mosquito's could be infecting people, since they feed on birds?? Any idea's?

More great news!!

Im Appalled wrote: "Could this new gastroenteritis virus which spreads from person to person possibly mutate with the bird flu? Is this the type of flu which the scientists are afraid of, that can make the bird flu changed to H2H ?" ---------------

Guests wrote: At the moment nobody is certain what is causing all these people to be ill from "Gastro" . I'm looking for anything unusual or unexplained in terms of illness. If these reports about "Gastro" are indeed that, then the situation should resolve itself with time and further investigation. All the countries that acknowledge that they have B.F., initially denied it's presence. I don't expect them to respond differently when it comes to reports about people. That is the reality from where I see it. If I were looking for something sinister involving human B.F. clusters or H2H, these "Gastro" type reports would be something I would investigate until proven otherwise.

  

Thousands of people infected with the "Gastro" flu virus...  within close proximity to where there have been cases of BF.  Food for thought.

Let's all hope it isn't H2H but some other malady and prepare in case it is bird flu.

Healthy birds to be killed: low demand

March 17, 2006

Nasik: Unable to bear the heavy losses they incurred after the bird flu
scare hit the state, poultry owners in Nasik district of Maharashtra have
decided to cull 25 to 30 per cent of healthy birds.

"Since bird flu was detected at Navapur and later in Jalgaon districts,
people in the remaining parts of the state have given up eating chicken
and eggs. As a result, stock of birds and eggs are pending in our
poultries," Shrikrishna Gangurde, president of Nasik District Poultry
Owners Association, told reporters here today.

"Also, there is no adequate place to keep the birds in the poultries and
hence the association has taken the decision to cull healthy birds," he
said.

He said that owners in the district had already stopped production of
chickens from eggs.

Gangurde said the poultry business had received a major setback since
the bird flu scare in Navapur. "In Nasik, 15,000 families (poultry workers)
are depending on us and we are facing heavy losses."

He said the state animal husbandry officials,
who rushed to Makhamalabad and Nasik Road localities yesterday after
some birds were found dead there, "collected samples and after testing it
in the government laboratory here said that the birds died due to
`Ranikhet' disease" and not bird flu.

There are 934 poultry farms in Nasik district including one state-owned
and two co-operative-run, having 60 lakh birds.


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