Culling over in Manipur

According to official reports, around 700-odd health workers independent of the RRTs on culling duty have been paying house-to-house visits in the affected area and approximately 45,000 houses have been surveyed by the health department teams. Of these, nearly 1,000 households were found to be having backyard poultry farms.

Meanwhile, the Isolation Ward at the JN Hospital here received two new ventilators. One of the symptoms of avian flu is severe respiratory problems. While fingers are unofficially pointing to neighbour Myanmar as the source of the outbreak in Manipur, the Centre has reportedly instructed the Mizoram Government to keep a check on the entry of poultry products from Myanmar. Apart from Mizoram and Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh also share the 1,600-km long porous International Border with Myanmar, which has reported bird flu outbreaks earlier this year.