Bird flu: Culling ends in Jalgaon

The district administration said the avian influenza virus has not affected any human being even though a patient was admitted to a local hospital.

The district administration said on Sunday that the avian influenza virus has not affected any human being even though a patient was admitted to a local hospital on Friday with suspected symptoms of bird flu.

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"The outbreak in backyard poultry here was the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu, but it has not infected humans so far. However, late on Friday, health officials found one boy with fever in Jalgaon district and put him under observation," District Collector Vijay Singhal said.

"We have monitored almost 70,000 people in two rounds. We will keep checking the same population for flu-like symptoms for 10 days after the last bird is culled," Singhal said.

The District Collector said the boy was thoroughly examined by a team of specialists from National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), New Delhi and National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the administration has completed culling nearly 80,000 chicken in four villages declared infected by the avian influenza.