Govt bans poultry import and sale in entire Garo Hills
From Our Correspondent
TURA: The State Government has announced a complete ban on all poultry products in East, West and South Garo Hills districts in view of the confirmation of an outbreak of bird flu in Williamnagar and mass slaughter of poultry in the affected zone has started on Thursday evening, informed State officials.
“We have started the culling of poultry in the government farm where the outbreak first took place and this operation will cover the affected radius of 1 km from the epicenter in the first phase and eventually extend to the remaining two kms designated as highly sensitive,” East Garo Hills Deputy Commissioner Praveen Bakshi announced.
After Wednesday’s ban of poultry in East Garo Hills similar steps have been taken by the district administration in Tura and Baghmara prohibiting any import, transportation and sale of poultry and poultry products.
“To ensure complete complying of the ban we have imposed Section 144 of the CrPC,” Bakshi added.
Eight Rapid Response Teams (RRTs) of East Garo Hills are being aided by five additional teams dispatched from Tura in the culling operation of the birds seized from the 3 km radius of the government farm where the outbreak started.
The administration in Williamnagar is keeping the Chief Minister and top bureaucrats updated on the ongoing operation to contain the bird flu outbreak.
“Today I had a video conference with Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma and Chief Secretary WMS Pariat and informed them of the steps being taken to fight the outbreak,” Bakshi informed press persons on Thursday evening.
In Tura, a meeting of the West Garo Hills District Level Task Force on Avian Flu under the chairmanship of the Deputy Commissioner Sanjay Goyal was held on Thursday morning.
The emergent meeting was called after the samples taken from dead poultry from Williamnagar tested positive of the H5N1 virus, and it became a top priority to chalk out the detailed plan and precautionary measures to prevent the outbreak in the district.
One of the important decisions taken at the meeting was to deploy teams from the Veterinary department along with police personnel in all the entry and exit points, particularly in areas adjacent to East Garo Hills district and also on the entry points from adjoining districts of Assam.
Interestingly, the administration in Tura has not decided to ban consumption and sale of locally available poultry products as there has been no cases of the diseases reported from any part of the district but the district Veterinary department has been given strict orders to ensure that the field staff monitor their respective areas and give a daily report to the District Administration should any cases of bird flu or birds dying anywhere is reported.
Other precautionary steps being undertaken is on preventing the spread of the flu to human beings and the Health department in the district has been asked to issue notice to all the PHCs, CHCs and private practitioners to monitor patients with symptoms of the disease and also to keep a stock of anti-virus medicines ready.
The Forest department personnel have been directed to keep a watch to see if there have been any unnatural deaths of migratory birds within the district and at the same time the PHE department has been asked to monitor the water reservoirs and tanks to prevent contamination by carcasses of dead birds, etc.
Although there has been no report of bird flu cases in the district, the Deputy Commissioner told the members in the meeting that nothing should be left to chance and should be ready to tackle the problem in the possibility of an outbreak in the district.