It was just another day for Abraham Ouseph, who had taken his ducks to the Vilakkupadam paddy polder for foraging as usual. Ouseph hails from Champakkulam grama panchayat and owns no land at Vilakkupadam, which is located in the nearby Edathua panchayat.
The places are in the Kuttanad region of Kerala’s Alappuzha district. The field was just coming out of a successful paddy harvest in March. As he was walking amidst his 7,500 ducks, all voraciously foraging in the fields, a few of them started appearing enervated and dying. “My birds were over 60-days old and looked healthy. They suddenly fell ill. Around 3,000 birds perished within days,” says Ouseph, a duck farmer for over two decades. It was the second week of April.
Around the same time, ducks owned by two other farmers in Cheruthana panchayat began dying with similar symptoms. The farmers promptly informed the Animal Husbandry department (AHD), and samples of the deceased birds were sent to the National Institute of High-Security Animal Disease (NIHSAD), Bhopal, for analyses, which confirmed another outbreak of bird flu in the region on April 17.
Three days later, members of rapid response teams (RRTs) culled the remaining ducks of the three farmers and other domesticated birds within one-km radius of the hotspots and burnt the carcasses as part of containment measures. In the following weeks, avian influenza spread to several places in Kuttanad, across Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, and Kottayam districts, and beyond.
This is the latest bird flu outbreak in the region, and has caused the death of 34,851 birds in three districts. Additionally, 1,70,911 birds, mostly ducks and chickens, have been culled as part of containment measures. Previously, five outbreaks have been reported in the Kuttanad area.
The first bout of bird flu in the region was reported in ducks in 2014 followed by another outbreak in 2016. After a lull, avian flu hit the region thrice between January 2021 and October 2022. Collectively, bird flu has resulted in the death and culling of over 13 lakh birds. Although avian flu was reported in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts in recent years, there were no recurring outbreaks like in Kuttanad.
Unusual spread
Unlike the previous outbreaks that primarily impacted poultry such as ducks, chickens, and quail in Kuttanad, the present episode of avian flu (H5N1) throws a wrench into the equation with several species of free-flying birds getting infected, notably outside the region. Crows, herons, kites, pigeons, and even peahen have tested positive, raising concerns about a wider spread caused by a virulent mutation of the virus, challenges in curbing the spread, and a possible jump to humans.
At Kayippuram in Muhamma grama panchayat in Cherthala taluk, Alappuzha, the sky is overcast with monsoon clouds. With the arrival of the monsoon rains, Premraj C.K., who runs a small juice shop, sits unoccupied. “We are scared of crows nowadays,” says Premraj adding that though Kuttanad has witnessed bird flu outbreaks quite a few times, this is the first time the disease has been reported in his village.
Avian flu in crows was confirmed for the first time in Kerala at Kayippuram on June 13. A few crows were found dead by residents near Kayippuram Service Cooperative Bank by the side of the Muhamma-Pathiramanal island road. “We initially thought the birds perished from electrocution. Soon more crows in the area started to look languid and die, raising suspicion. We informed the AHD and samples were tested at NIHSAD, which confirmed bird flu,” says C.D. Viswanathan, local ward member.
Many people raise ducks in Kutanad and frequent avian flu outbreaks result in heavy economic losses. | Photo Credit: SURESH ALLEPPEY
Bird deaths at Kayippuram were followed by more bird deaths across the wider region caused by the virus. According to a scientist at a lab under the AHD, the free-flying inland birds might have been dormant carriers of the virus from an earlier stage now causing bird deaths. However, as of now, most of the observed bird deaths happened in human-populated areas, not in the wild, he says.
K.E. Carmel-Mathaji Road leads to a desolate poultry farm in Ward 10 of Kanjikuzhy grama panchayat, which borders Muhamma. Until recently, the farm housed around 2,000 chickens. Now, only a few feeding bowls and some equipment remain with bleaching powder sprinkled all over. The farm, which stands in a few cents of land, is situated in a thickly populated area and is close to its owner’s house. The birds at the farm began to die around the same time as the crows perished at Kayippuram, leading to confirmation of the disease on June 13.
A small number of workers are engaged in disinfecting the farm. “We have a busy schedule nowadays. After this, we are heading to other bird flu epicentres in the region,” says one worker. The mandatory 10-day quarantine for workers and members of the RRTs is causing a shortage of hands to handle the culling in the region.
Precautions taken
The latest outbreak has resulted in 37 avian flu epicentres in the three districts. In Alappuzha alone, there are 29 epicentres. With avian flu spreading more rapidly, experts say there are greater chances of humans catching the disease. H5N1 has high pathogenicity. Though the World Health Organization considers the public health risk from bird flu to be low, there have been around 889 cases of H5N1 infections in humans in the past two decades, of which 463 patients succumbed to the disease in different countries.
“Avian influenza poses a potential threat to human beings due to two reasons: its ability to mutate rapidly and its propensity to acquire genes from viruses infecting other species such as humans. Sporadic bird flu infections have been reported in humans, but no human-to-human transmission has been reported so far,” says Sairu Philip, professor and head, Department of Community Medicine, Government Medical College Hospital, Kottayam.
She says that if the virus acquires the capability of human-to-human transmission it can be dangerous. “The risk of such a situation increases if the virus is allowed to circulate freely and no control measures are initiated. The important thing is to detect and contain them early with concerted efforts while propagating preventive measures by community participation.”
In light of the outbreak, a standard operating procedure issued by the State Health and Family Welfare department warns that “having unprotected exposure to any infected animal or to an environment in which infected birds or other animals are or have been present can pose a risk of infection” to humans. Unprotected means not wearing personal protective equipment for protection of respiratory system or the eyes. The SOP recommends the public avoid unprotected contact with sick or dead birds or with materials contaminated by birds suspected of infection.
Besides tightening surveillance and taking preventive measures, the Health department has set up an isolation ward with an intensive care unit and ventilator facilities at the Government Medical College Hospital, Alappuzha. “At present, no human H5N1 case has been reported here. But we remain vigilant. As early detection of the disease, isolation, and treatment are important, we are collecting throat swab specimens from people, especially those susceptible to catching the disease, such as those involved in bird culling operations and poultry farmers, and testing them for avian influenza,” says Jamuna Varghese, District Medical Officer, Alappuzha.
Until recently, the virus only affected poultry, so the AHD relied on mass culling of affected flocks and domesticated birds within a kilometre radius of the epicentres to contain the spread. With the disease now confirmed in wild birds, AHD officials say the situation has drastically changed, but the present action plan for a bird flu outbreak does not recommend culling wild birds.
“We are focussed on preventing the spread of a virus with pandemic potential. The public can contribute by not dumping waste, including kitchen waste and other rubbish, in public areas which attracts crows and other birds, leading to the spread of the disease,” says an AHD official. The official says although the virus has jumped from birds to other mammals in different countries, no such incident has been reported in Kerala.
Farms bear the brunt
A constant cacophony of quacks filled the air at the Government Duck Farm, Niranom, in Pathanamthitta, bordering Alappuzha, until mid-May. Now it looks deserted as the outbreak has resulted in the death and culling of the entire stock of around 4,000 birds. It has left Snow White, a duck breed developed by the farm, on the verge of extinction.
“Apart from distributing the birds to a few farmers, Snow White was stocked only at the Niranom farm. The entire Snow White population at the farm, along with Chara and Chembally (two local breeds), either perished or were culled following the outbreak. We now hope to collect Snow White or its eggs from farmers and start restocking at the farm once it reopens. In the case of Chara and Chembally, they are available at other institutions,” says Harikumar J., District AHD officer, Pathanamthitta.
The State government has constituted an 18-member expert team to study the outbreak. “One way to deal with repeated outbreaks is to impose a temporary ban on poultry farming in Alappuzha. But we cannot take such a decision in a hurry. Let the expert committee submit its interim report. The priority right now is to prevent the disease from affecting humans,” says Animal Husbandry Minister J. Chinchurani.
Kuttanad, a below-sea-level region defined by Vembanad Lake, rivers, canals, and swathes of paddy fields, is visited by large flocks of migratory birds, but experts say there is no conclusive evidence yet that the source of infection was the winged visitors. They point out the latest outbreak began after the end of the bird migratory season. According to an AHD official, the viral clade spreading in the region is a new one. “The same clade caused an outbreak in the U.S. recently, which has affected cattle there. There is a possibility that migratory birds transmitted the infection to local birds here, and ducks got the virus from them at a later stage,” says the official.
Over the years, government departments and institutions collected hundreds of samples of migratory birds and tested them, but nothing suspicious was detected. “As part of a research project conducted at the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, a few hundred samples from migratory and wild birds from across Kerala were collected during 2019-20 and tested for avian influenza virus. However, the virus was not detected in any of the samples. That said, research carried out across the globe has pointed out that migratory/wild birds might play a role in the spread of the virus. Hence, studies are needed to elucidate how outbreaks of the disease occur in a particular area,” says Chintu Ravishankar, professor and head, Department of Veterinary Microbiology, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences under the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Pookode in Wayanad.
There are calls for setting up a permanent surveillance system for monitoring and early detection of bird flu. A facility to test suspected samples in Alappuzha itself, instead of the current practice of sending them to NIHSAD for confirmation, has been a long-pending demand. In Kuttanad, many people raise ducks. Frequent outbreaks result in heavy economic losses. The number of big duck farmers (having a flock size of 2,000 or above) in the backwater region has dwindled to hundreds from thousands in the past decade.
Two months after H5N1 ravaged his farm, Ouseph says he is not thinking about a return to duck farming any time soon. “I had spent around ₹150 per bird before the outbreak struck my flock. I was raising birds after taking a loan and suffered losses totalling lakhs. I hope the government will soon provide compensation as they did in previous years,” he says, while urging the government to introduce an insurance scheme for duck farmers.
Following the previous outbreaks, the government provided a compensation of ₹200 for a bird older than two months and ₹100 for those less than two months. Besides, ₹5 was given for each egg destroyed. Duck farmers’ associations estimate duck production in the region has at present nearly halved from 17.05 lakh birds in 2012, with farmers exiting due to recurring avian flu outbreaks.
Bird flu has directly impacted a relatively small number of poultry farmers, but it has rattled the entire poultry sector and allied businesses, including restaurants, in the region. Authorities are regulating the trade of duck, chicken, and quail meat and eggs within a 10-km radius of the epicentres to contain the virus.
While the previous outbreaks mostly ravaged duck farming, the latest bout has also badly affected chicken farmers, especially in the northern parts of Alappuzha, where several poultry farms are situated. Binnychan Xavier, an unaffected duck farmer from Nedumudi in Kuttanad, says the demand for birds has plummeted and the future of poultry farming is “looking increasingly doomed”.
Published - July 04, 2024 08:29 pm IST
