Test tubes are seen labelled "Bird Flu" words in this illustration taken, June 10, 2024.
Reuters
Kolkata: West Bengal currently has no bird flu case and the state government has formed a team to evaluate the evaluation in the state, a senior official said on Tuesday.
The state has already conducted a screening of around 29,000 birds from Kaliachak in Malda district, he said.
A four-year-old girl from the district was diagnosed with the disease in January and recovered after treatment, the official told PTI.
A team comprising senior officials of the health department and a couple of representatives of the World Health Organisation (WHO) was constituted for another round of evaluation of the situation in the state, he added.
"There is not a single bird flu case in West Bengal. The only case was reported in January in Kaliachak in Malda district when a four-year-old girl was diagnosed with the disease. She is fine now and we are keeping a watch on her health," the health department official said.
"After that, we screened around 29,000 birds from that area of the district and not a single case was found. There is not a single bird flu case in West Bengal now," he said.
The official said that the girl belonged to a family that had a poultry farm at their residence, which could be the source of the H9N2 virus getting into her system.
"We conducted a thorough check-up of each of the family members of the girl, but none was diagnosed with the virus," he said. The H9N2 bird flu virus is a subtype of the avian influenza virus which spreads through direct contact with infectious animals or indirect interaction with contaminated environments.