Angul: A spate of sudden deaths of hens and chicken at a government-run poultry farm in Angul was due to bird flu, it was confirmed Tuesday, days after a local laboratory emphatically claimed that the deaths were not related to the killer epidemic.
The confirmation came after test reports were made available to the poultry farm authorities by the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) in Bhopal.
The NIHSAD report confirmed presence of H5N1 virus among the dead hens. Earlier, farm authorities had sent samples of the dead birds to the Bhopal-based laboratory to ascertain the reason behind the abrupt deaths of the hens on the farms, February 9.
The revelations have triggered panic among farm authorities as they held talks with the district officials on initiating urgent measures to combat the spread of the disease. The remaining hens on the farms were administered vaccines and injections from Tuesday.
Meanwhile, another 180 hens died Monday, bringing the total number of deaths from January 30 to 1,564.
Sources said the farm authorities brought over 2,234 chicks in two phases November 9 and 23 to raise them on the farm.
However, hens suddenly started dying one after the other from January 30. The farm authorities informed the Animal Disease Research Institute at Phulanakhara on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar on the poultry deaths.
A team from ADRI visited the farm and collected the samples of dead hens twice for examinations. However, each time, they claimed pneumonia to be the reason behind the disease.
Accordingly, the farm authorities administered injections and vaccines to the remaining hens but failed to check the poultry deaths.
Concerned over the deaths, the farm authorities finally sent the samples to the Bhopal-based laboratory for examinations. PNN
