BOMBAY/NEW DELHI, 23 February 2006 — At least seven people quarantined in India with suspected bird flu have tested negative for the deadly H5N1 strain, officials said yesterday.
Health workers have killed tens of thousands of birds in Navapur, a remote town in the western state of Maharashtra where an outbreak among chickens was confirmed on Saturday.
A total of 12 people were quarantined in Navapur either because they suffered flu-like symptoms or as a precaution and Vijay Satbir Singh, Maharashtra’s top health official, told Reuters in Bombay he was concerned over possible human cases.
In all 95 people were tested but 90 proved negative for the H5N1 strain, said India’s federal Health Secretary P.K. Hota. The other five samples, which were from the 12 people who had been quarantined, were being tested further.
“Five samples are being subjected for further tests. Right now, we have no single (confirmed) human case of avian influenza,” Hota said.
“Even those five cases, if they are established as having H5N1, are unlikely to be full blown cases,” he said.
Alarm is growing at the emergence of the H5N1 virus in India, where hundreds of millions of people live in rural areas side-by-side with livestock and domestic fowl.
Health officials fear that in a nation of more than one billion people, many of whom have little or no access to health services, avian influenza could rapidly spread.
Maharashtra’s Navapur, where the virus was discovered on Saturday, health workers wearing anti-viral masks and goggles have killed about 400,000 birds.
Civic workers in Navapur said they were instructed not to shed bird blood to prevent any infection spreading.
“We are wringing the necks of the chickens and dumping them in open pits,” said health worker Pravin Samudre.
“Sometimes birds remain alive. We put disinfectants on them and bury them alive.” Adding to concerns are reports of more sudden deaths of poultry elsewhere in the country.
“Up to 10 kilometers away, all the birds have been killed,” said Maharashtra state Animal Husbandry Commissioner Vijay Kumar.
In Navapur and nearby villages, health workers went around on motor-rickshaws making announcements about bird flu to the people, most of whom were ignorant of the disease.
In Gujarat state to the north of Maharashtra, police banned the transport of chickens and eggs.
There were numerous reports of poultry deaths around the country. In the southern state of Karnataka 16,000 dead chickens were found, a senior government official said.
Bird flu has killed more than 90 people in seven countries since 2003.
A health official said India is considering a ban on retail sales of a generic bird flu drug, fearing the disease could develop resistance if taken by people who are not infected by the lethal H5N1 virus.
Two Indian pharmaceutical companies are currently making generic copies of Tamiflu, a patented drug from Swiss drug maker Roche that has been the most effective in treating the worst symptoms of Avian flu in human beings.
One of the companies, Cipla Ltd., said yesterday it has started shipping the drug to pharmacies, but a senior Health Ministry official said the government might stop such shipments. A final decision has yet to be made.
