THANE: The state has recorded its first cases of avian influenza of the year. Several poultry birds, including ducks, owned by a charitable trust in Velholi, Shahpur (Thane district), nearly 100 km from Mumbai, got infected and died in a span of a week, said officials from the state animal husbandry department.
The infection was detected after over 300 birds died "mysteriously", prompting local animal husbandry experts to send specimens to a state laboratory in Pune and later to the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases Laboratory in Bhopal. The lab results detected the H5N1 strain of avian flu.
