Bhubaneswar: Bird flu scare continued to grip Odisha as more crow deaths were reported even as the state government continued its culling operation at Keranga area in Khurda district for the second consecutive day.
"As many as 11,260 fowls were eliminated on Friday in Keranga area. Besides, chicken from a particular private poultry firm at Keranga, fowls of small hatcheries were culled today," said Gopal Tripathy, state government`s nodal officer for culling.
While two teams comprising live stock inspectors, veterinary doctors had been undertaking culling at the private firms having about 28,000 poultry, local people today voluntarily offered their fowls, Tripathy said.
The culling operation started yesterday after the state government was directed by the Centre to kill the infected fowls following detection of H5N1 virus in some chicken in Keranga area.
The culling process was being carried in 19 villages including Keranga with adequate compensation for affected poultry farmers. While culling was on in 3 km radius of Keranga, surveillance work was undertaken in villages within its ten km radius to detect any possible outbreak of avian influenza, official sources said.
Meanwhile, Tripathy said that more cases of crow deaths including from the state capital, was received at the fisheries and animal resource development department. Death of about 1263 crows was received from 12 districts, he said. Though certain serum samples of crows were sent to laboratory for examination, the state government was yet to receive any confirmation regarding cause of the crow deaths, Tripathy said. PTI