More than 13,000 lorries, trucks and goods carriers have been disinfected by the Animal Husbandry Department (AHD) at six check posts that connect Coimbatore with Kerala following an outbreak of bird flu at Melkera village in Bidar district, Karnataka three weeks ago. While disinfecting began on May 12, it is now been intensified.
Disinfecting is part of the three-pronged approach. On Friday, AHD Director for Tamil Nadu T. Abraham inspected arrangements at the check posts at Walayar, Gopalapuram, Anaikatti, Velanthavalam and Meenakshipuram.
Disinfectants are sprayed on vehicles, which are also run on gunny bags soaked with disinfectants to check the spread of the flu. Of the 12 check posts on the Coimbatore-Kerala border, only six of them had active movement of goods vehicles.
Teams of four to 10 personnel per shift are stationed at the border to carry out fumigation and cleaning of tyres of vehicles with disinfectants. They work on three shifts (eight hours each) to have a check on movement of vehicles round the clock.
The teams will check all vehicles carrying poultry products from Coimbatore, Erode, Tirupur and Namakkal to Kerala and goods carriers from Kerala entering Coimbatore. The AHD has also formed 40 rapid response teams to take quick action if an incident of bird flu outbreak is reported.
“Nearly 1,260 small poultry farms – egg-laying as well as broiler farms – in rural Coimbatore have been sensitised and they have been asked to bring to our notice incidents of unnatural death of their birds. In the post-mortems conducted so far, the cause of sudden deaths (in the recent weeks) was due to heat stroke,” a senior AHD department official said.
“In case of a suspicious death, samples from the birds were sent to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal. The samples sent so far have tested negative for bird flu,” the official added.
Veterinarians are also visiting the poultry farms and are monitoring the condition of birds and sensitising farmers on the dos and don’ts.
Senior department officials say there is a watch on the movement of migratory birds coming to this region. These measures will continue till further directions from the State Government.
Teams of four to 10 personnel per shift stationed at the border to carry out fumigation
