India seals part of Bangladesh border over bird flu

KOLKATA, India (Reuters) - India sealed part of its border with Bangladesh on Thursday amid fears the latest outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus had spread to new areas, officials said.

Authorities in West Bengal state have killed about 10,000 birds in the Malda district which borders Bangladesh since Tuesday, despite resistance from villagers who want more compensation, after tests proved a new outbreak in the area.

"We have already sealed the border with Bangladesh along Malda district to check the spread of bird flu through chickens and ducks smuggled in from the other side," West Bengal's animal resource development minister Anisur Rahman told Reuters.

Hundreds of thousands of birds have also been culled in India's northeastern Assam state and neighbouring Meghalaya since an outbreak was detected there last month.

While there has been no recent outbreak in Bangladesh, India's impoverished neighbour suffered a severe bird flu epidemic starting in March 2007. Millions of birds were culled, costing the poultry industry hundreds of millions of dollars.

Malda authorities have sent more samples for testing after hundreds of chickens died in the past two days in a different area of the district, about 10 km away from the village regarded as the centre of the latest outbreak, officials said.

Authorities also increased the number of birds they plan to kill in West Bengal by 3,500 to 20,000 after discovering that there were more poultry farms in the area than first thought.

"We hope to complete the work by tomorrow," said N.K. Shit, a senior animal resource development official in Malda.

Health workers are also monitoring about 100 villagers in and around Guwahati city in Assam who had shown signs of H5N1 but tests so far indicated none had the virus, health officials said. There have been no human cases of H5N1 confirmed in India.