India conducts night raids to contain bird flu

By Bappa Majumdar

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Authorities in India's east battling to contain a fresh outbreak of bird flu said they were raiding farms at night to catch chickens and ducks and counter unwilling villagers who have refused to hand over poultry.

Only a month after authorities in West Bengal declared that bird flu was under control, a fresh outbreak was reported from the state's Murshidabad district, where 900 backyard poultry died over the last two weeks.

Some villagers have also let their poultry loose during the day and hide them inside their homes at night, Subir Bhadra, a senior district official said from Murshidabad.

"These are problems we are facing and therefore we have decided to surprise the villagers by conducting night-time raids," Bhadra said by telephone.

"It is working, although villagers are superstitious and seem closely attached to their poultry, which also puts them at a health risk."

There have been no reported human cases of bird flu. Experts fear the H5N1 strain could mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person, leading to a pandemic that could kill millions worldwide.

During the earlier outbreak in January, the H5N1 virus hit 13 of the state's 19 districts, including Murshidabad, bringing down poultry sales by more than 70 percent in the state, but it had a limited impact in rest of the country.

They had then culled close to 4 million birds in the state after the World Health Organisation (WHO) described January's outbreak as the worst-ever in India.