Sri Lanka on Sunday banned the import of poultry and poultry products from India following the outbreak of bird flu in Maharashtra.
Daily Mirror quotes the Director General of Health, Dr SKR Amarasekara, as saying that among the banned products are feathers and skin which are used in making sofas, jackets and belts.
The state-owned Daily News quotes the Director of Epidemiology, Dr Nihal Abeysinghe, as saying that the government has asked Sri Lankan farmers to keep away anybody from India who had visited rural areas in that country recently.
The Director of Agriculture and Livestock Department, Dr S Amarasekere, said that there was a real danger of the bird flu coming to Sri Lanka from India because most of the migratory birds in the island came from Western India, where the blue flue had been discovered.