India culls chickens after bird flu

By Bappa Majumdar

KOLKATA (Reuters) - Veterinary workers began killing thousands of chickens in West Bengal on Wednesday following what the World Health Organisation (WHO) said was the worst outbreak of bird flu in the country.

Officials said it could take up to a week to cull about 350,000 birds in three districts of the state.

The WHO's India office said the fourth bird flu outbreak in India since 2006 presented its toughest challenge yet.

"More serious risk factors are associated with this current outbreak than previously encountered, including that the affected areas are more widespread," Indrani Dasgupta, a WHO India official, wrote in an email.

But Pradeep Kumar, animal husbandry secretary, emphasised that the outbreak was "localised" and under control. "There is no need for a scare," he told a news conference in New Delhi.

Kumar acknowledged some of the difficulties containing the threat. He said the West Bengal government took too long to tell New Delhi about suspicious bird deaths in the state.

And in Birbhum, the worst-affected district, where nearly half the adult population is illiterate and few own a television, it has been difficult to get villagers to observe stringent hygiene practices that might limit the spread of infection.

Local men wearing only cotton wraps around their waist were seen carrying dead birds with their bare hands and dropping them in shallow pits.