Bangladesh economy cannot handle H5N1 outbreak

Bangladesh culls 30,000 chickens after birds' death sparks bird flu fears

2007/3/22
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP)

Bangladeshi authorities recently culled about 30,000 chickens at a state-owned farm after many died mysteriously, sparking fears of a bird flu outbreak that later proved unfounded, an official and a domestic news agency said Thursday.

Chickens at a farm owned and run by Biman Bangladesh Airlines began dying last month, prompting authorities to cull all the birds in the farm this month, an official of the country's livestock department told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in line with official policy.

But authorities later got confirmation from at least three local laboratories that it was Exotic Newcastle, a fatal respiratory virus in birds, that caused the deaths of the chickens, the official said without providing further details.

"Initially we could not determine what happened but we didn't take any risk," the official said. "We are now contented that it's not bird flu."

Local news agency bdnews24.com reported that samples of the infected chickens have been sent to a laboratory in Thailand to reconfirm the earlier test results.

"We are convinced by the local laboratory test results. To make the results internationally convincing, we have sent the samples to a foreign laboratory," the agency quoted an unnamed government official as saying.

The agency said the virus has spread to some other private farms in Savar, an industrial zone outside the capital, Dhaka.

The virus, which is locally known as Ranikhet, is a contagious and fatal viral disease affecting all species of birds but it has no record of attacking humans. It is so deadly that many birds die without showing any signs of disease. A death rate of almost 100 percent can occur in unvaccinated poultry flocks while it can also infect and cause death even in vaccinated birds.

The South Asian nation has so far reported no cases of bird flu and it has banned import of poultry products from more than 50 countries as part of a preventive measure to check bird flu from entering the country.

An outbreak of H5N1 virus in Bangladesh could devastate the impoverished country's poultry industry, comprised of about 150,000 farms with an annual turnover of about US$750 million (euro625 million), officials said.