18.02.2006

The first cases of avian influenza have been confirmed in Nandurbar district of Maharashtra.
On Saturday morning, the animal diseases lab in Bhopal confirmed that seven samples taken from dead chickens tested positive for the disease.
The lab had been testing samples of chickens which had died over the past few weeks in Maharashtra's Nandurbar district.
Over 50,000 chickens have died in the last few weeks in Nandurbar, a poultry belt that lies along Maharashtra's border with Gujarat.
The birds died of the H5N1 strain of avian influenza.
Five persons under observation.
The government has swung into action and will exterminate 3,000,000 chickens in 16 poultry farms in the area.