Wearing protective gloves and masks, health officials and farm workers slaughtered thousands of chickens in western India today, a day after the country reported its first outbreak of bird flu among poultry.

Lab tests have confirmed that at least some of the chickens that died of bird flu in western India in recent weeks were infected with the deadly H5N1 strain, the country’s first case of the disease.

India’s first case of bird flu has been reported in a western town where thousands of birds have died in recent days, a government official said today.