Confirmed cases of bird flu at a state-run poultry farm in Bokaro has forced the Jharkhand government to put all such facilities on high alert and issue directions to set up control rooms in all 24 districts to monitor the situation, officials said on Wednesday.
State animal husbandry director Chandan Kumar said prescribed SOPs laid down by the central government have been put in place after the Bhopal-based National Institute of High-Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAN) confirmed avian influenza (H5N1), popularly known as bird flu, in the samples sent from the poultry farm.
“Around 70-80% of the 1,000-odd chickens died over the past week, while the rest will be culled following the confirmation from Bhopal,” Kumar said.
While orders have been issued to all districts to set up control rooms to trace any possible outbreak, cases till now have been reported only from the aforementioned poultry farm.
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“The department will be conducting random sampling within a 10-km radius in Bokaro to check any possible spread. We are also doing contact tracing to get to the source of the outbreak,” he added.
The sale of chicken in such areas in Bokaro will be banned till further orders.
