1,000,000 UNDER OBSERVATION INDIA for bird flu..

KOLKATA - Officials in India’s West Bengal suggested Sunday that neighbouring Bangladesh sparked an outbreak of bird flu that spread to new areas of the state at the weekend.

The deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu has killed birds in 13 districts or more than two-thirds of the state, in India’s third and by far worst outbreak of the poultry-borne disease.

“Bird flu has spread on Sunday to another district,” West Bengal animal resources minister Anisur Rahaman told AFP by telephone, after samples from the West Midnapore area tested positive.

“We are really falling behind in the battle against the deadly H5N1 virus.”

West Bengal’s health minister said the outbreak may have spread from Bangladesh, with almost half the neighbouring nation affected by the disease.

“We suspect the disease has come to West Bengal from Bangladesh as bird flu was first tested positive in the three districts sitting on the border,” state health minister Surya Kant Mishra told reporters.

The disease has been detected in 29 of the Bangladesh’s 64 districts since the country’s first bird flu outbreak began 10 months ago, with a science adviser to the government calling the spread of the virus “alarming.”

No human cases have been reported from either nation but more than one million people were under observation in West Bengal, health officials said, adding that all tests so far had been negative for the virus.