India Free From Avian Influenza

Strict surveillance including culling, disinfection and clean-up have worked remarkably in making India free from Avian Influenza. Specified actions formulated by the Ministry of Health still needs to be taken up regularly.

- Kalyani Sharma

India had reported outbreaks of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1 and H5N8) at various places like Gwalior (Madhya Pradesh), Rajpura (Punjab), Hissar (Haryana), Bellary (Karnataka), Allappuzha and Kottayam (Kerala) and Ahmedabad (Gujarat) during October 2016 to February 2017.

All the outbreaks of Avian Influenza (HPAI) mentioned above were notified to World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), is an intergovernmental organization coordinating, supporting and promoting animal disease control, and the control and containment operations were carried out as per the Action Plan on Preparedness, Control and Containment of Avian Influenza. Surveillance was carried out throughout the country and around the areas of the outbreaks since completion of the operation (including culling, disinfection and clean-up) and surveillance in the states showed no evidence of presence of Avian Influenza Virus.

India is now free from highly contagious Avian Influenza (H5N1) or bird flu. Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries in the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare made this announcement as no outbreak of Avian Influenza (H5N1) was reported in the country after the last notified outbreak at Humnabad, Bidar district, Karnataka in June 2016.

According to the statement given by Union agriculture ministry, "India has declared itself free from Avian Influenza (H5N8 and H5N1) from June 6, 2017 and notified the same to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).”

The statement also says, “Various control measures like stamping out of entire poultry population including destruction of eggs, litter, feed and other infected materials were adopted.”

About Avian Influenza (AI)

AI or bird flu is an infectious viral disease of birds which can sometimes spread to domestic poultry and cause large-scale outbreaks of serious disease.