Poultry farm in Bangladesh did have H5N1 bird flu

The strain of bird flu deadly to humans was today detected at a state-run poultry farm near the Bangladeshi capital where workers recently slaughtered about 30,000 chickens, the government said.

The country’s health minister, S.M. Matiur Rahman, said there were no reported cases of human infections but that citizens had been put on alert.

Authorities responded to the discovery by slaughtering about 8,000 chickens at five privately operated farms near Dhaka as a precautionary measure.

“We have no proof that those 8,000 chickens are infected,” said the official, who led the operation.

Laboratory tests in Bangladesh and Thailand confirmed that the poultry farm at Savar, which is run by the state-owned Biman Bangladesh Airlines, was infected by the H5N1 virus, the government Press Information Department said in a statement.

Authorities recently culled all 30,000 chickens at the farm after many died of a mysterious disease.

“The results showed the existence of H5N1,” the statement said.

Preliminary tests at three local laboratories had said earlier the chickens died from Exotic Newcastle, a fatal respiratory virus in birds.