Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Meghalaya's East Garo Hills district - Bird die-off

Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Another 40 birds died Tuesday on a government-run farm in western Meghalaya, even as the state government awaited the test reports on earlier deaths to know whether they were due to bird flu, officials said.

"Forty more birds have died an unnatural death in the same farm at Williamnagar and we are yet to establish the cause of their death," Animal and Husbandry Director D. Lyngwa told IANS.
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"We have not decided to impose any restriction on consumption as we are yet to confirm exact cause of deaths of the birds in the area, but if the test proves positive, we will impose restrictions," Lyngwa said.
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2,000 dead birds set off flu fears in Meghalaya

Jan 10, 2012
Around 2,000 poultry birds have died in the past few weeks on a farm in Meghalaya's East Garo Hills district, fuelling fears of bird flu, even as a general alert was sounded in the area, officials said on Monday.

A government official said 2,000 chickens died an unnatural death in a government-run poultry farm at Williamnagar, the district headquarter of East Garo Hills, about 312 km west of Meghalaya's state capital Shillong.

"We have sent samples for laboratory tests to Bhopal-based High Security Animal Disease Laboratory for confirmation. We don't know for sure if the poultry deaths were due to bird flu," Praveen Bakshi, the district magistrate, told the media.

Initially, he said the government has sent samples to a Guwahati-based Laboratory, but it did not yield any results.
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