Central Travancore, a sitting duck to avian flu Premium

Kerala’s Kuttanad region is battling another devastating outbreak of bird flu, but this time the disease has spread beyond the region and infected crows, kites, pigeons and herons unlike previous times when it was restricted mostly to poultry in Kuttanad.

It was just another day for Abraham Ouseph, who had taken his ducks to the Vilakkupadam paddy polder for foraging as usual. Ouseph hails from Champakkulam grama panchayat and owns no land at Vilakkupadam, which is located in the nearby Edathua panchayat.

The places are in the Kuttanad region of Kerala’s Alappuzha district. The field was just coming out of a successful paddy harvest in March. As he was walking amidst his 7,500 ducks, all voraciously foraging in the fields, a few of them started appearing enervated and dying. “My birds were over 60-days old and looked healthy. They suddenly fell ill. Around 3,000 birds perished within days,” says Ouseph, a duck farmer for over two decades. It was the second week of April.

Around the same time, ducks owned by two other farmers in Cheruthana panchayat began dying with similar symptoms. The farmers promptly informed the Animal Husbandry department (AHD), and samples of the deceased birds were sent to the National Institute of High-Security Animal Disease (NIHSAD), Bhopal, for analyses, which confirmed another outbreak of bird flu in the region on April 17.

Three days later, members of rapid response teams (RRTs) culled the remaining ducks of the three farmers and other domesticated birds within one-km radius of the hotspots and burnt the carcasses as part of containment measures. In the following weeks, avian influenza spread to several places in Kuttanad, across Alappuzha, Pathanamthitta, and Kottayam districts, and beyond.

This is the latest bird flu outbreak in the region, and has caused the death of 34,851 birds in three districts. Additionally, 1,70,911 birds, mostly ducks and chickens, have been culled as part of containment measures. Previously, five outbreaks have been reported in the Kuttanad area.

The first bout of bird flu in the region was reported in ducks in 2014 followed by another outbreak in 2016. After a lull, avian flu hit the region thrice between January 2021 and October 2022. Collectively, bird flu has resulted in the death and culling of over 13 lakh birds. Although avian flu was reported in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts in recent years, there were no recurring outbreaks like in Kuttanad.

Unlike the previous outbreaks that primarily impacted poultry such as ducks, chickens, and quail in Kuttanad, the present episode of avian flu (H5N1) throws a wrench into the equation with several species of free-flying birds getting infected, notably outside the region. Crows, herons, kites, pigeons, and even peahen have tested positive, raising concerns about a wider spread caused by a virulent mutation of the virus, challenges in curbing the spread, and a possible jump to humans.