AI IN W. BENGAL - SITREP 12

UNCLAS KOLKATA 000035 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPT PLEASE PASS CDC - BLOUNT AND COX AND HHS - STEIGER AND HICKEY E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KFLU TBIO EAGR CASC SENV ECON ETRD PGOV IN SUBJECT: AI IN W. BENGAL - SITREP 12 REF: KOLKATA 32, KOLKATA 30 AND PREVIOUS ¶1. (U) SUMMARY: With new districts like South 24 Parganas, Howrah and West Midnapur officially added to the AI-infected list, the GOWB revised its culling target to 2.7 million. Reports of cullers walking off the job in the Birbhum district received coverage in the press. Municipal authorities in Kolkata's Salt Lake neighborhood imposed a ban on poultry trade as a "precautionary" measure. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (U) With new districts like South 24 Parganas, Howrah and West Midnapur notified on January 26 and 27 for culling, the GOWB revised the culling target to 2.7 million. Around 2 million birds have been culled through January 28. At present, 1,014 RRT teams are working in West Bengal's 13 AI-affected districts. As of January 26, 1.5 million people have been checked under a community level fever surveillance program. Approximately 3,600 people were found suffering from fevers. Biological samples taken from 17 people were tested for avian influenza from the following districts as of January 27: South Dinajpur (7), Murshidabad (2) and Birbhum (8). No suspected case of human avian influenza has been detected so far. ¶3. (U) On the night of January 27, about 180 culling personnel stopped work in Rampurhat in Birbhum district - which first reported the outbreak and is one of the worst-affected areas - and deserted their posts the next morning without informing their supervisors. A senior ARD official said the culling teams were completely exhausted from the grueling work they had been doing over the last 13 days. Recent rains apparently damaged the cullers' makeshift living quarters. Compounding the problem was that in some villages, cullers were coming under pressure from local community leaders to inflate the number of birds culled, possibly in a bid to obtain more compensation from the GOWB. Replacement culling teams have reached Rampurhat, and culling is expected to end by January 30. ¶4. (U) Buying and selling of poultry has been prohibited in Kolkata's Salt Lake neighborhood (approximately 8 kilometers from downtown Kolkata),although there have not been reports of poultry death. Salt Lake municipal authorities imposed the ban as a precautionary measure to stop poultry from the adjoining South 24 Parganas district from entering the municipal area. Although municipal authorities in Kolkata have not imposed a ban on poultry trading within the city, the state government has imposed restrictions on the movement of poultry into the city from the districts. Post contacts at Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) outlets in Kolkata reported a "significant" drop in sales, but KFC has not stopped sourcing chicken from Arambagh Hatcheries, which is located in Kolkata. JARDINE