Imphal/New Delhi, July 25: The Manipur government today announced an outbreak of bird flu in a small farm in Imphal East district, barely three months after the state set up a special cell to monitor the entry of poultry products from flu-hit neighbours Bangladesh and Myanmar.

“The spread of the H5 strain of avian influenza in a small poultry farm located at Chingmeirong in Imphal East district has been confirmed. Blood samples collected from the farm tested positive at the Animal Disease Laboratory, Bhopal and National Institute of Virology, Pune,” Th. Dorendro Singh, the director of the animal husbandry and veterinary department, said.

A senior animal husbandry scientist said tests on seven of eight dead birds have shown they were infected with an H5 strain of avian influenza. The other genetic fingerprint that defines the most deadly avian influenza — H5N1 — has yet to be confirmed, he added.

“But the mortality rate suggests a highly pathogenic virus,” said Shantanu Bandopadhyay, the animal husbandry commissioner.

Earlier this year, Indian officials had expressed concern that both Bangladesh and Myanmar have been fighting H5N1 outbreaks at a slow pace.

Chingmeirong is nearly 200km from both Myanmar and Bangladesh. “We can’t say anything about how it’s come there... we’ll need to work this out,” Bandopadhyay said.

Twenty-one residents of a cluster of three houses and veterinary staff who had come in contact with the birds in the affected farm have received Ostelamivir, a drug that is used as a “chemoprophylactic” to prevent the disease.

The veterinary department collected blood samples of chickens from the farm after 132 of the 144 chickens died within a span of four days earlier this month. The rest were culled and buried. However, Dorendro said the blood samples collected from other farms within a 5km radius of Chingmeirong tested negative. The disease is confined to only Chingmeirong farm, he said.

Before the announcement of the outbreak, chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh held a high-level meeting with officials of the health and veterinary department at his office to review the action plan to tackle the flu outbreak.

Dorendro said the culling of poultry within a 5km radius of the farm would start tomorrow. Twenty rapid response teams would be deployed to cull the birds. Medical teams will also begin a house-to-house search for influenza-like symptoms.