India bird flu cull continues
(CNN) -- The mass culling of poultry continues in India's western state of Maharashtra, two days after three cases of bird flu were found among chickens there.
Officials plan to kill some 700,000 fowl within 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) of where the infected birds were found.
Farmers will be compensated for their losses, officials said.
Meanwhile, health officials are going door-to-door in the region, looking for any people who may be showing signs of the virus.
So far, no human cases have been found, but several people with flu-like symptoms are under observation, authorities said.
Indian health officials confirmed the bird flu outbreak among poultry in Nandurbar district Saturday, and authorities with the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) -- which tracks disease outbreaks among animals -- confirmed the findings Monday.
Dr. H.K. Pradhan, head of the high-security animal disease laboratory in the central Indian city of Bhopal, announced the finding of the deadly H5N1 strain and said the lab has been testing samples from tens of thousands of poultry that have died in the past couple of weeks.
Health Secretary T.K. Hota said the flu is thought to have spread to farm birds from migratory birds.
Maharashtra state has a large poultry industry, contributing largely to the $84 million worth of poultry and eggs India exports annually.
India is the world's fifth-biggest exporter of eggs, and the bird flu scare could cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars.
In other developments
China has warned of fresh outbreaks of bird flu this spring and has banned imports of pet and wild birds from 10 countries recently hit by the disease, state media said on Tuesday. China has reported more than 30 outbreaks of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in both poultry and wild birds in a dozen provinces in the past year, along with 11 human cases in recent months, eight of whom have died.
Indonesia will take its anti-bird fight into the teeming streets of the capital this week, testing thousands of chickens for the virus and slaughtering all birds living within one kilometer (1/2 mile) of any outbreak, the Associated Press reports. Officials will pay the equivalent of 1 for each chicken they kill, the head of Jakarta's Animal Husbandry Department, Edi Sutiarto, said Tuesday. The three-day campaign starting Friday will be the first such program carried out in Jakarta.
Forty chickens died in Malaysia last week of the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu, the first reported cases of the virus in the country in more than a year, the government has announced. However, the death of the chickens in an area near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's main city, was an isolated case, and there were no human deaths, Agriculture Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said in a statement released late Monday.
Tests confirmed that a dead magpie found near a flower market in urban Hong Kong was infected with the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus, the 10th bird killed by the disease in recent weeks, the HK government said. The magpie was collected Friday from the congested commercial and residential district of Mong Kok, the government said in a statement late Monday.
