India has reported an outbreak of the highly contagious H5N1 bird flu virus on a poultry farm in the central state of Chhattisgarh, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Wednesday, citing a report from India’s fisheries and animal husbandry ministry.
The virus killed 5 634 out of 21 060 birds on the farm in Baikunthpur and all of the remaining birds were slaughtered, the Paris-based OIE said in a website alert.
Meanwhile, Four more outbreaks of bird flu have been reported across Poland, authorities said on Friday, bringing the total number of incidents in Europe’s largest poultry producer to six this week.
Outbreaks were confirmed in Wolka Orlowska and Olchowiec Kolonia, both in the Lubelskie region of Poland, a spokesman for the governor of the Lubelskie region said on Twitter.
Another outbreak of the H5N8 strain reported on Friday was in the eastern Lubelskie region at a farm about 500 metres from where two cases in turkeys were confirmed this week.
Until then Poland had not had an outbreak of bird flu since 2017.
An outbreak of the H5N8 strain was also confirmed on a chicken farm in Przygodzice, in the western Wielkopolskie region, Poland’s General Veterinary Inspectorate said in a statement.
60 000 birds are expected to be gassed in Lubelskie region, regional veterinary officer Pawel Piotrowski told Reuters on Friday. 40,000 have already died as a result of the flu, he added.
He said around 100 000 birds could be affected in Lubelskie and there was a big risk of the virus spreading in the area as there were a lot of poultry farms close together.
![[FILE IMAGE] William Nicol Drive, during the start of the Covid-19 lockdown.](https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/SABC-News_William-Nicol-intersection_by-Dinilohlanga-Mekuto-120x86.png)
