Bird flu in Ranchi's backyard poultry, Jharkhand on high alert

RANCHI: Bird flu scare gripped Ranchi ahead of Holi after several confirmed cases of H5N1 surfaced from a VVIP's residential premises at Jail Chowk, prompting district administration to huddle into rounds of meetings on Saturday and order culling of birds.
The entire state of Jharkhand was put on high alert after Ranchi reported its first few cases, the second district after Bokaro confirmed the virus outbreak first on February 21.
State agriculture, animal husbandry and cooperative minister Badal Patralekh on Saturday promised compensation to poultry owners who lost their stocks due to bird flu in Bokaro and appealed to residents in Ranchi not to panic and cooperate with the district administration's surveillance team in controlling the situation.
"Animal husbandry department is working out on modalities to compensate for the losses. Situation in Ranchi is under control, and we appeal to people to cooperate in containing the situation," he said.
From Sunday onwards, district administration will press surveillance multiple teams in one km radius from the point of occurrence and begin culling of poultry and its by-products both from households, shops and eateries falling in the 'infection zone'.
Talking to STOI on Saturday, deputy commissioner Rahul Kumar Sinha said the infection zone has been divided into seven pockets from where they will begin the surveillance exercise from Sunday to identify poultry farms and other sources.
"We will initially create awareness and appeal to people to voluntarily dispose of all kinds of poultry and if needed, we will act tough to seize them to dispose of as per the norms," Sinha said. The areas falling under the 1km radius infection zone will be Kutchery, Panchawati Plaza, Lalpur (till Allahabad bank), Karamtoli among others.