Saturday, February 25 2006 10:31 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Navapur: Government yesterday(Feb 24,2006) said all human samples tested for suspected bird flu proved negative and the scare set off by the outbreak of the dreaded disease in Navapur was tapering off.

"The sample which was sent to National Institute of Virology, Pune, yesterday is also negative for the bird flu virus," P K Hota, Health Secretary said a day after all other tests also proved negative.

Thus, there is no bird flu in humans in the country. However, the situation was being closely monitored and was under control, officials said.

However, two more persons were admitted to the Navapur sub-district hospital today taking the total number of people who are under observation to fourteen. All these people have had either the history of contact with infected poultry or of their backyard poultry death.

All these cases are of upper respiratory tract infection and do not have any fever, officials said adding the X-ray of the two new patients are normal.

The officials said two journalists, who had gone to Navapur to cover the bird flu, were also admitted to Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad with complaints of cough and sore throat. However, both the journalists are without fever and their chest X-ray are normal.

They said the panic among the people has subsided and less number of people are attending the Out Patients Department at Navapur hospital.

"The OPD attendance of the hospital has reduced considerably," they said.