Bird flu has been detected in a government-owned poultry farm at Gandhigram, about 18 km from here, official sources said today.
The Director of Animal Resource Department, Mr Manoranjan Sarkar, said following deaths of poultry in the farm about four days ago, samples were sent to High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal which confirmed the presence of H5N1 virus in the affected birds.
The Rapid Response Squad of Animal Resource Development Department has been made ready and is waiting for approval from the department to begin culling, he said, adding that culling would be restricted only to the farm. There are 3,871 poultry in Gandhigram farm in West Tripura district.
Mr Sarkar said more than 300 poultry were culled within 3-km radius area of the government-owned Lembucherra poultry farm in the district, about 20 km from here, in the last week of January this year after bird flu was detected in the farm.
Tripura first witnessed the outbreak of avian influenza way back in 2008.