Friday, February 24 2006 10:23 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Navapur (Maharashtra): Health officials yesterday(Feb 23,2006) began disinfection drive in 20 poultry farms in the bird flu affected areas here after completion of culling of chickens.

"After completion of culling of around remaining 34,520 birds taking the total culled tally to 2,53,063 birds, 20 teams were sent across to work on disinfection in 20 farms",Commissioner Animal Husbandry, Maharashtra, Bijay Kumar told sources here.

"Various methods were used for disinfecting like cleaning with disinfectant chemicals using flame guns and fumigation with potasium per manganate and formalin in 1:2 ratio. The cages have been cleared and the feathers burnt in some of the farms", he said.

He said the process of burning the germs using flame guns could be carried out only in three farms of the 20 in which the work started. This was because the flame guns requisitioned by the Collector were around 40 but only three could be available from the farm owners.

The farm owners expressed their inability to provide these flame guns since they did not possess them.

"Since time is short and work needed to be done is huge so we did not bother to investigate their statement and rather decided to purchase 40 units from Vadodara. Sixteen of these units would be received yesterday night", he said.