Bird flu has been confirmed at one more place in Alappuzha. Officials of the Animal Husbandry Department (AHD) on Friday said the disease had been detected in chickens at a poultry farm in Punnapra.
“The Centre has not yet notified the outbreak of bird flu in Punnapra. Once the notification comes, rapid response teams of the AHD will cull all domesticated birds within a 1-km radius of the hotspot. The bird culling operation is likely to be held on Monday. The farm was housing over 1,000 birds and less than 100 remain there on Friday as the rest perished to the disease in recent days,” said an AHD official.
Following the mass death of ducks at the farm, the AHD sent samples of dead birds to the National Institute of High-Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD), Bhopal, for analyses, which tested positive for avian influenza.
