Return of bird flu in India raises alarm

West Bengal has completed culling of chicken after a spate of unnatural bird deaths reported in some poultry farms in Nadia district's Tehatta block. While it has been confirmed that the organism infecting the birds is the H5 strain of influenza, it is still not known if it is the mutant variety. On August 29, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization had raised concerns that the virus circulating in Vietnam and Cambodia are a mutant variety. India was identified as one of the countries at risk of contracting this mutant.