Members of a rapid reaction team culling chickens and ducks at Keranga poultry farm near Khurda. File picture

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 3: The avian influenza virus has resurfaced in the state after a brief lull. This time, a sample from the Central Poultry Development Organisation (CPDO), Eastern Region Centre, near Jayadev Vihar, has tested positive for the H5N1 virus.

The report from the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory (HSADL), Bhopal, reached the state government this afternoon.

With this sample from the heart of the city testing positive, Odisha has so far registered three H5N1 positive cases for poultry. The earlier positive cases were from Keranga in Khurda and Bahanada in Betnoti block in Mayurbhanj district. Later, all poultry birds within a 3-km radius of these two places were culled. While around 33,000 birds were culled in Keranga, around 11,000 were killed in Mayurbhanj district.

Sources at the bird flu control room of the Fisheries and Animal Resources Development (FARD) department said the CPDO campus might be declared as another epicentre of the bird flu because around 12,000 birds are present at the centre. The regional centre of CPDO trains poultry farmers of the eastern and northeastern states on backyard poultry. The institute is also working on the rearing and propagation of many indigenous poultry birds. However, no one is sure whether there would be a culling order of the poultry stock because the order comes from the Bhopal-based laboratory.

Interestingly, there were also two positive samples of avian influenza virus from crow samples. While one sample was sent from Keranga, the other was from Madanmohanpada in Angul town.

Though the FARD department initially did not take the crow deaths seriously, later the two positive crow samples proved the seriousness of the H5N1 infection. Odisha reported more than 2,500 crow deaths. More than 80 deaths took place in the state capital. Such deaths were also reported in Berhampur in the third week of January.

The seriousness of the bird flu virus lies in the fact that if it is transmitted to human beings through an intermittent host such as pig, then things could become serious.

However, experts of the FARD department feel that the H5N1 virus found in the state could be linked to the 2008 outbreak in Bengal and after three years, the virulence might have been very low.

Since 2006, India has seen a number of bird flu outbreaks, but Odisha was never the origin of the virus. In 2008, though there was a plan for culling in the border district of Mayurbhanj because of an outbreak in Bengal, this year, the flu has originated from home-grown poultry, causing the loss of nearly 45,000 birds. Culling in the tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj district also created a fear of losing of many indigenous varieties of poultry birds.

The death of eight poultry and five other birds on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar near Jadupur on January 15 brought the flu scare to the state capital. But experts of the FARD department have said that the birds died of the Ranikhet disease, which has some similarity with the H5N1 infection.

FARD Department sources also added that poultry samples were also sent from the poultry stock on the campus of the Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology.