Bird flu spreads in Assam

Medical officials in the Indian sate of Assam have revealed they have a new outbreak of bird flu to deal with.

Thousands of chickens and ducks were slaughtered at the weekend after the H5N1 strain of the virus was detected in a dead bird in a village close to the city of Guwahati.

It was hoped this would be enough to halt the spread of the virus, but it has now been detected in dead birds in villages previously thought to be unaffected.

Authorities have banned the sale and movement of poultry in the Guwahati area in a bid to contain the outbreak and a further cull of birds is set to start on December 4th.

Central health ministry official Parthajyoti Gogoi told Indo-Asian News Service he was concerned about the potential threat posed by the outbreak.

"A maximum health alert has been sounded. Teams of doctors and paramedics are taking precautionary measures so that humans are not affected," he added.

Figures compiled by the World Health Organization show that there have been 387 cases of humans becoming infected with the H5N1 strain since 2003, 245 of them fatal.

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