Poultry samples test negative

Bipin Bhardwaj

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Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 1

The National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases Laboratory, Bhopal, has tested all poultry samples sent by the Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (RDDL), Jalandhar, from Chandigarh and the surrounding areas and has found these negative for avian influenza.

Though the UT Administration has not received any formal communication from the Union Agriculture Ministry in this regard, Dr DD Kulkarni, Joint Director and Principal Scientist of the Bhopal laboratory, claimed that all poultry samples received by them from the RDDL had tested negative.

“Only one sample of goose from Sukhna Lake had tested positive for bird flu earlier. After that all samples that we received have tested negative,” Dr Kulkarni told Chandigarh Tribune on the telephone from Bhopal.

Dr Vinay Mohan, Joint Director of the RDDL, said they had sent samples of birds, including geese from Sukhna Lake, bar headed geese from Jind, crows from Tarn Taran and Pinjore and chicken from Shimla.

Besides the samples from poultry farms located in Chandigarh and the surrounding areas, the samples of migratory birds from Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Chandigarh were also sent to the Bhopal laboratory for examination, said Dr Mohan.

On December 16, a sample of goose from Sukhna Lake had tested positive for the avian influenza virus following which the Union Health Ministry directed the UT Administration to cull all geese at the lake.

The Administration, with the help of experts from the RDDL, had culled 110 domesticated geese in a nine-hour operation on the night of December 18. The Administration had closed the lake for a month.

All domestic birds and poultry farmers within a 3-km radius of the lake were quarantined while those in a 10-km area were put under surveillance.

UT health officials, with the assistance of experts from the Union Health Ministry, had launched a drive to monitor residents living within a 3-km distance of the lake and had kept them under surveillance.

Dr Lovelesh Kant Gupta, Joint Director, UT Animal Husbandry Department, said he had not received any formal communication from the Union Agriculture Ministry.

Meeting to take call on reopening Sukhna 

Asked when Sukhna Lake would be reopened for visitors, Dr Lovelesh Kant Gupta, Joint Director, UT Animal Husbandry Department, said, “Once we get a formal communication from the Union Government, a meeting of officials of different departments linked with the lake and experts from the RDDL will be held in the presence of the Deputy Commissioner to take  a final decision on it.”

What the DC says

UT Deputy Commissioner Mohammed Shayin said he would take a decision on reopening Sukhna Lake after getting clearance from the Animal Husbandry and Health departments.