DHAKA, April 8 (Reuters) - Bangladesh has culled 3,000 chickens after an outbreak of bird flu was confirmed at a new farm near the capital Dhaka, officials said on Sunday. "The new farm is located at Savar, where the H5N1 virus was first detected in six farms on March 22," a Fisheries and Livestock Ministry official said. He said hundreds of veterinary and health officials had been mobilised and the movement of chickens had been banned outside a 10 sq km (3.9 sq miles) area around the affected farms to check the spread of the avian flu. Some 75,000 chickens have been culled so far from 27 farms since the outbreak was confirmed last month. More than 500 workers at the infected farms have been given a local version of the Tamiflu anti-viral drug as a precaution, Health Ministry officials said. No humans have tested positive for the disease in the densely populated country. Bangladesh says it has sufficient Oseflu, a local version of Tamiflu, produced and marketed by a local firm since last year. At least 170 people have died of bird flu, mostly in Asia, since 2003. Health experts fear the virus could trigger a pandemic if it mutates to form a strain that can transmit between humans. Bangladesh has 125,000 small and large poultry firms producing 250 million broilers and 6 billion eggs annually.About four million Bangladeshis are directly or indirectly associated with poultry farming.
