By Bappa Majumdar KOLKATA, India, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Villagers at the centre of a bird flu outbreak in India's east refused to hand over their chickens and ducks for culling on Thursday, hampering efforts to stamp out the deadly disease in poultry. Veterinary workers also struggled to persuade villagers in three districts of West Bengal state to observe stringent hygiene practices needed to limit the spread of what the World Health Organisation says is the worst bird flu outbreak in India. In Margram village, the epicentre of the outbreak, villagers told a Reuters photographer their birds were not infected. They let loose their ducks and chickens so that veterinary workers found it difficult to catch and kill them. Officials admitted a delay in culling because of villagers' opposition. "But we will step up the operation today," Sanchita Bakshi, a West Bengal health official, said. State officials had said on Wednesday it could take up to a week to cull 400,000 birds. Only a few thousand had been killed a day later. The latest outbreak of the H5N1 strain in poultry, the fourth in India since 2006, has killed more than 35,000 chickens and birds. India has not reported a human infection, but health workers were checking people in the affected areas for flu symptoms. Several villagers said they had eaten dead birds and officials said the lack of hygiene among villagers posed a threat. Chicken deaths were also being reported from new areas in West Bengal, but the state's animal resources minister said it may not be bird flu. Samples of the dead birds had been sent for testing. "A total surveillance is in place," minister Anisur Rahaman told Reuters. But bird flu is putting people off poultry products. In West Bengal's capital, Kolkata, chicken sales dropped by half and most airlines operating out of the city had stopped serving chicken. Officials say the latest outbreak in the country's east could have originated from neighbouring Bangladesh, which is struggling to contain the virus in its poultry. (Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Alex Richardson)
Health workers dump culled poultry into a ditch at Margram village, about 240 km (149 miles) north of the eastern Indian city of Kolkata January 16, 2008. Veterinary workers began killing ...
