Springing into action following the death of over 4.3 lakh poultry birds at Panchkula’s Barwala-Raipur Rani belt in the past 25 days, the multi-disciplinary central team on Thursday reached Panchkula and interacted with the senior officers of State Health and Family Welfare and Department of Animal Husbandry. These team members would inspect the affected areas in Barwala and Raipur Rani area on Friday.

Talking to ‘The Pioneer’,  Panchkula Civil Surgeon Dr Jasjeet Kaur said that the four multi-disciplinary central teams comprising experts from National Center for Disease Control, National Institute of Virology, PGIMER, Chandigarh, Dr RML Hospital, New Delhi, and Lady Hardinge Medical College, New Delhi, have visited Panchkula and interacted with the senior officers of Health and Family Welfare. The Panchkula Health Department has already sent teams to the poultry farms for surveillance. “We have received directions from the central Government to start active surveillance and declare an alert in the areas for symptoms of avian influenza. Health teams visited 69 farms and no influenza-like symptoms were reported in the workforce.” she added.

The mortality rate among the birds in Barwala of Panchkula district has decreased over the last two days. More than 125 samples of the deceased birds, including their blood, food given to them and carcasses, among others, were sent to the Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (RDDL) in Jalandhar of Punjab and Bhopal of Madhya Pradesh for testing and confirmation. “We are still awaiting reports from the Regional Disease Diagnosis Laboratory in Jalandhar and avian Influenza has not been confirmed yet. Reports are likely to be received on Friday,” said Dr Sukhdev Rathi, deputy director, Haryana animal husbandry and dairying department.