The Centre sent two experts from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) who met district medical officers in Margram. Although the state government’s alert had reached the district magistrate last evening, the animal husbandry department staff hadn’t fanned out today. Villagers learnt of a possible outbreak only when the media showed up. Officials of the state Animal Resource Development Department had collected samples from from Margram I and Margram II gram panchayat areas under Rampurhat Block II on January 8 and sent them to Bhopal for testing. Last evening, the Bhopal laboratory sent a message to the state government, confirming the presence of a virus though it said more tests needed to be done to confirm if it was the deadly H5N1 strain.

Sunil Kumar Bhowmick, Birbhum Chief Medical Officer of Health, said “preliminary tests have confirmed that this is bird flu, an isolation ward has been opened in Rampurhat hospital.” An estimated 15,000 birds have perished here since December 29. But clearly, no visible steps have been taken to contain the spread of the virus — dead birds continue to litter the area. Margram II’s block livestock development officer Debrup Roy said: “I came to know only today.” The organised poultry sector has not been affected so far but the virus seems to have hit backyard poultry in almost every household of Margram I block. Most farmers rear livestock as well as the free-range ‘desi’ chicken for eggs or for sale in the local market.

Used to outbreaks of the Ranikhet disease, the villagers have been killing the sick birds and cooking them. Kazem Sheik of Begumpara in Margram lost some 40 birds in the last 12 days. “Initially, we had a lot of chicken curry,” said Sheikh. “Now we have only one hen left.”