Kathmandu, February 9:

Officials today claimed that bird flu was fully under control due to the effective performance of the rapid response teams deployed for the task. Jhapa district, which saw the avian flu outbreak, however, is under a three-month observation.

Dr Manas Kumar Banerjee, coordinator and director of Avian Influenza Control Project at the Department of Health Services, today said not a single case of bird flu had been diagnosed

in humans even though three persons were kept under observation for a week on suspicion of contracting the deadly flu.

Dr Banerjee said they were well prepared to contain any possible outbreak of bird flu in the country.

Prabhakar Pathak, director, Department of Livestock Services, informed that 23,947 chickens, 4,931 eggs, 329 pigeons, 401 ducks, 345 kg of poultry feed, 12 parrots and other birds were culled in to contain the outbreak. He said 109 samples had been collected for tests.

According to Pathak, globally, bird flu was first noticed in 1997 while the disease has been seen in 68 countries so far. Around 251 people have so far died due to the disease across the world. He said the main cause of the spread of the disease was informal trade of poultry products.

Laxmi Raman Ban, director of media and information centre under the Ministry of Health and Population, said the outbreak had been tamed with the combined effort of Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and MoHP.

Ishwor Sharma, president, Hatchery Industries’ Association, said only 25-30 per cent of their products were being sold presently.