SAS Nagar, February 15: “After three weeks of extensivecurtailment measures, threat of spread of avian flu in the district has beensuccessfully countered’’, informed Girish Dayalan.
The administration has been on high alert ever since thebird flu confirmation was received on January 21. Twenty five Rapid ResponseTeams (RRTs) comprising of five members each were deployed for swift action.The culling in the infected farms Alpha, Royal and Evergreen in village Beheracommenced on Jan 22 and by Jan 29 nearly 84505 birds from these farms wereculled. Subsequently, 2760 eggs and 128850 kg feed was destroyed. This wasfollowed by a period of mopping which lasted for nearly ten days. Thereafter,large scale sanitization measures were initiated, said he and now the concernedfarms have been finally issued the certificates of sanitization and the all theaspects of culling operation are complete, added Dayalan.
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Replying to a query regarding the district being free ofavian influenza, Dayalan said , “As of now the threat is over but to officiallydeclare the zone to be bird flu free still requires to wait for some time.” Forthe zone to be bird flu free, it is mandatory that after the culling , moppingand sanitization, the area in 10 km radius of the epicentre has to be monitoredclosely. It has to be divided into four zones, frequent sampling has to beconducted and fortnightly testing is to be carried out for two months from eachzone. If no more positive samples surface, it is only then that the area isdeclared bird flu free. In the meanwhile, formalin spray after every 15 dayshas to be done for three months in each of the farms where culling wasundertaken; then they can re-commence the business.