ON THE TRAIL OF WINGED DEATH

Tuesday, January 15, 8.30 a.m.
“I almost quit smoking but now I am back at it, smoking packet after packet. I am here to see the situation,” says Abhijit Roychowdhury, block medical health officer (BMHO) of Rampurhat II block.
The stress of dealing with bird flu in Margram is showing. Roychowdhury begins his day at 6.30 in the morning, making rounds of villages, returning home only after 8.30 at night. He then spends the next few hours reading and analysing the daily reports submitted by health workers before sending his comments every night to Swasthya Bhawan in Kolkata, the headquarters of the state Health Department.
The avian flu that hit West Bengal last week was first detected in Birbhum district but quickly spread to the neighbouring districts of Nadia, Burdwan and Murshidabad. As the state Government quarantined the affected zone, it declared that over four lakh birds were to be culled in order to check the deadly H5N1 virus from spreading and announced a compensation package of Rs 3 crore for the affected families.
Roychowdhury stands outside his jeep at Rajpara bazaar, surrounded by anxious villagers who have a stream of questions for him.
He is looking at the birds still being sold in the market when a villager Murshed Khan walks up to him to tell him that all his 25 birds have died. “They started dying in late December. I went to the panchayat office and then to the block office but they said it’s the Ranikhet disease and sent me back home. Now, there are dead birds lying around in the village,” says Murshed, a rickshaw puller.
Roychowdhury urges him not to panic but he can’t hide his own alarm. He asks the health workers accompanying him to make a note of Murshed’s complaint. Then he, along with two workers, makes his way to Malibaganpara, the worst affected in the area.
Today, he is searching for a particular house. Finally, he finds it. The house belongs to Kalu Sheikh, a daily-wage labourer. Roychowdhury begins a round of questions. “I heard your children are ill?” he says. “For how many days have they had fever? How many birds in your house are dead?”
Kalu’s children—seven-year-old Anarul Sheikh and eight-year-old Tumpa Sheikh—have been running a fever for the past four days. Kalu tells Roychowdhury that they had seven hens. Four died last week and the rest fell ill. The family ate one of the birds a few days ago.
“When my four birds died, the children picked them up and threw them behind the house. The other three were ill, so we thought why not eat one. But why are you asking these questions?” Kalu says.
One of the health workers ventures to tell Kalu that there is a new disease in the area that could be fatal to humans. Roychowdhury interrupts him, asking him not to create panic. Don’t worry, he tells Kalu and his wife, putting his hand on the children’s foreheads.
“Keep a watch on the family,” he tells his staff as he leaves.
As Roychowdhury walks around the village, people come up to him, asking him to look at their ailing hens. The village lanes and fields are lined with dead birds. In one corner children play next to a pile of rotting dead birds. “We buried some of the birds initially but then there were so many dead that we just started to throw them outside our houses,” says 14-year-old Sheikh Zulfikar. “See there are two cranes dead near the pond,” he points at some white feathers beside a pile of dead chickens near a pond.
A health worker joins Roychowdhury, asking him how many houses they should cover today. “A hundred each day. Please try,” replies Roychowdhury.
Soon after he and his team leave the village comes the news: the Union Government has officially declared bird flu in West Bengal. The dreaded H5N1 virus has struck.

... contd.

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