New Delhi, Jan 6
The Union ministry of health and family welfare has deployed multi-disciplinary teams to bird flu affected Alappuzha and Kottayam districts in Kerala, and Panchkula district, Haryana, as a precautionary measure even though no human case of the disease has been reported from anywhere in the country.
A high level team comprising Director, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and Joint Secretary and Covid-19 nodal officer, ministry of food processing industries, has been deployed to Kerala on Wednesday, to oversee the implementation of bird flu containment operations and guide state health departments in mounting appropriate public health interventions to control the situation. In addition, this high level team will also review the Covid-19 situation in the states.
The department of animal husbandry on January 4, 2021, had notified detection of Avian Influenza (H5N8) in samples of dead ducks from Alappuzha and Kottayam districts in Kerala. A similar report of bird flu has also been received from poultry samples from Panchkula district of Haryana, following which the health ministry called a meeting of experts to monitor the situation.
The first set of high level team was sent to the affected states on January 4.
“The two multi-disciplinary teams comprising experts from the National Center for Disease Control, National Institute of Virology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, Dr RML Hospital, New Delhi, and Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, have been deployed to the affected districts by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare on January 4, 2021 to assist the state health departments in implementing the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare’s Avian Influenza containment plan,” the health ministry statement said.
Similar reports of the disease have also been reported from Jhalawar, Rajasthan and Bhind, Madhya Pradesh involving crows and migratory birds. The Department of Animal Husbandry as per laid down protocol has issued alerts to further intensify surveillance to detect any case in poultry birds.
“So far, no human case of Avian Influenza has been reported. The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare continues to keep a strict watch over the evolving scenario,” the statement further read.
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