Chicken smugglers caught in bird flu zone

Imphal: More than a dozen poultry farmers in the country's bird flu-hit northeast have been caught trying to smuggle flocks of chickens out of the quarantine zone, police said yesterday.

Local residents helped police to stop people sneaking chickens and poultry products out from within a five kilometre radius of a small farm at Chingmeirong village in Manipur state, the site of the latest bird flu outbreak this week.

The virus detected in Manipur is the most worrisome H5N1 strain, which can in rare cases infect and kill humans, usually those who spend a lot of time around infected birds.

Scientists fear it could mutate into a form that can be easily passed between humans and trigger a deadly pandemic.

There are no suspected human cases in India at the moment, state health officials said. A lab in the western city of Pune is testing blood samples taken from workers on the affected farm.

Health workers have already killed around 25,000 chickens and destroyed thousands more eggs since Thursday to try and contain the virus. They plan to cull 150,000 in all within the quarantine zone by next week.

Unhappy at the thought of their livelihood being culled, some poultry farmers are trying to escape with their flocks before the culling party arrives, a state police spokesman said.

More than a dozen farmers have so far been detained in local police stations until yesterday evening, by which time their flock will be dead, police said.

The state government has said it will give farmers Rs40 rupees (Dh3) for every one of their chickens it has to cull.

India's northeastern region has Bangladesh, Myanmar and China as its neighbours, all of which have been hit by the H5N1 strain.

Indian troops on the state's border with Myanmar have begun extra patrols to prevent poultry smuggling.

Last year, India faced two major outbreaks of the H5N1 strain in chickens in the west of the country.

Since 2003, nearly 200 people have died out of more than 300 people infected by the virus across the globe, the World Health Organisation says.

The bird flu outbreak in Manipur has led to a scare with people not willing to take a chance and rushing to doctors for symptoms ranging from common cold to fever.