CALCUTTA, India - New outbreaks of bird flu have been confirmed today in western India as health workers slaughter more poultry in a bid to curb the spread of the disease.
Tests determined that nearly 3,000 chickens found dead Thursday in a previously unaffected district had died of bird flu.
West Bengal state's animal husbandry minister Anisur Rahman says bird flu was also confirmed in a separate southern district.
Officials ordered the slaughter of 400,000 birds, mostly chickens, after birds began getting sick several days ago in the state.
Rahman says that number would likely be boosted to 600,000.
Authorities are still awaiting test results to determine whether it was the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has been blamed for the deaths of at least 218 people worldwide since 2003.
No human cases have been reported in India, despite two previous H5N1 outbreaks among birds.
About 60,000 birds have been slaughtered in recent days, but health workers are reportedly facing resistance from farmers because they believe the government isn't adequately compensating them.
Health workers were going door-to-door in the affected areas, which border Bangladesh, where a more limited outbreak has killed 20 birds. Officials were looking for people with high fevers or breathing trouble.
The Bangladesh outbreak has been confirmed as the H5N1 strain.
Authorities in eastern Nepal, meanwhile, have banned the import of chickens and eggs from India and Bangladesh to prevent the spread of bird flu.
The H5N1 virus has afflicted more than 60 countries since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in 2003, forcing the slaughter of hundreds of millions of birds worldwide.
It remains hard for people to catch, but experts fear it may mutate into a form that spreads easily among humans, potentially sparking a pandemic. So far, most human cases have been linked to contact with infected birds.
