The Centre on Tuesday allayed fears of bird flu spreading to human beings in West Bengal, saying the random testing of people in the affected areas has been carried out and all such samples have tested negative.
"It is a general thing that if anybody has any fever or anything like that the blood will be tested and till date we have not got any confirmation for that (bird flu)," Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss told reporters on the sidelines of a function in Delhi.
The minister said the screening is conducted between 0-10 km of the affected area and all people who live in the villages are randomly tested by health ministry teams.
"Till date we have not had any confirmation of that and there is no reason to be concerned of any cases of human cases of bird flu," he said adding "we are all vigilant".
The National Institute of Communicable Diseases,which as a part of the Union Health Ministry is responsible for carrying out the screening on Tuesday said that all five human samples taken from West Bengal have tested negative.
"In fact the samples which were taken from South Dinajpur and Birbhum did not have any clinical symptoms of the disease and did not even fit the definition of suspect cases," NICD Director Shivlal told PTI.
"Three samples which had been sent to NICD, New Delhi, had tested negative on Monday and NICD, Kolkata, which tested five samples has confirmed on Tuesday that all of them are negative for the presence of avian influenza," he said.
The samples had been randomly selected from people who had handled poultry, the villagers in the affected areas and the culling teams.
In Birbhum district, two trucks carrying chicken bound for Jharkhand were detained on Tuesday at Nalhati as the government has banned movement of poultry from bird flu-affected districts, government sources said.
South Dinajpur District Magistrate S Chattapadhyay said that the birds' bloods samples sent from Gangarampur to Central laboratories have tested negative, which shows that the disease has not spread to new areas.
He also said that on Monday around 71,000 chicken were culled and 61,000 eggs destroyed.
About Rs 11 lakh has been paid as compensation to the affected traders, the DM said.
A report from Patna said Bihar government has banned import of poultry from neighbouring West Bengal.
"We have put a blanket ban on import of birds from West Bengal in the wake of reports of the dreaded H5N1 virus spreading there," Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi, who is also holding the portfolio of Animal and Fishery Resources, said on Tuesday.
Modi said the district authorities of Katihar, Purnia, Kishanganj and Araria have been asked not to allow birds from neighbouring West Bengal and keep a close watch on the situation in their districts.
