A bird flu outbreak has been confirmed in Jharkhand's Bokaro district, just a month after the disease led to the culling of thousands of birds in Ranchi, officials said on Sunday.
The outbreak, caused by the H5N1 strain of avian influenza, was officially confirmed on March 7 when the central government informed the Jharkhand chief secretary. The virus was detected at a government poultry farm in Bokaro’s Sector 12, where around 250 birds have already died.
To contain the spread, the Bokaro administration culled 46 remaining birds at the farm on Saturday and destroyed 506 eggs along with 1,717 kg of poultry feed. The entire farm was then sanitised, said Dr. Manoj Mani, the district’s Animal Husbandry Officer.
Authorities have declared a 1-km area around the farm as an affected zone, meaning all birds in this zone will be culled. Additionally, a 10-km radius has been marked as a surveillance zone, where the sale and purchase of poultry have been banned. An awareness campaign has also been launched.
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Dr. Anil Kumar Sinha, who oversees the government poultry farm, said that the first bird deaths were reported on February 20. More birds died in the following days, prompting authorities to send samples to laboratories in Ranchi, Kolkata, and Bhopal for testing.
The ICAR-National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) in Bhopal confirmed the presence of H5N1 on March 7. In just 15 days, nearly 250 out of 300 birds at the farm had died.
In February, a similar bird flu outbreak was reported at Birsa Agriculture University (BAU) in Ranchi, where 5,488 birds were culled to prevent the spread of the virus.
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