A DOZEN people, including four children, were in isolation in the Indian state of Maharashtra yesterday as tests were carried out to see if they were the country’s first human victims of bird flu.

The move came as the British Government revealed that it had ordered two million doses of vaccine to protect birds against the H5N1 strain of the virus. Birds in zoos will be the first to be treated and other captive rare birds or endangered species will be included in a vaccination programme.

The first vaccines will be in the country within two months.

News of the order for vaccines emerged as the French and Dutch were given the go-ahead to start limited vaccination programmes.

In France, where a second duck was diagnosed with the H5N1 strain last night, there are plans to vaccinate 900,000 ducks and geese kept outdoors in three regions deemed most at risk of the disease from the spring migration route.

The Dutch, however, are offering five million free-range farmers and up to three million hobby owners the right to vaccinate their birds instead of locking them indoors.

The Dutch Government has already ordered all birds inside.

Any birds which become infected with the virus after vaccination will have to be culled. Meat and eggs from healthy birds, however, can be sold within the EU and to third countries if they have been certified by a vet. Vaccinated birds will be subject to strict testing and blood sampling.

In India, the small town of Navapur, 250 miles (400km) east of Bombay, where poultry-raising dominates the economy, has been the centre of concern since tests of about 30,000 chickens that died there in recent weeks detected signs of H5N1. More than 700,000 birds have since been slaughtered within a two-mile radius of the outbreak, according to Vijay Kumar, the state’s animal husbandry commissioner. Culling continued yesterday, with another 80,000 birds scheduled to be killed.

Twelve people who have shown signs of flu-like symptoms have been put into isolation and tests are under way. So far, blood samples from 185 people, including those quarantined, have been sent for testing at a virology laboratory in Pune, in the west of the state.

Vijay Satbir Singh, the leading health official in Maharashtra, said that the results were expected soon. “We are keeping our fingers crossed,” he said. Mr Singh said that if any human blood sample tested positive for bird flu after preliminary investigations, more detailed tests would be carried out before a final conclusion.

Confirmation of human infections in India would trigger an extensive surveillance of the virus by the World Health Organisation. Experts will be keen to see if the makeup of the virus has changed from that found in other countries. But as long as there is no evidence of infection from person to person, no restrictions will be made on air travel from India to Britain or any other country, a WHO spokeswoman said last night. Airports would not be required to screen passengers before boarding a flight.

International air transport rules place an onus on carriers to ensure that passengers are healthy. Anyone with obvious flu-like symptoms could be prevented from flying. Staff at British airports have been told to be alert for sick people arriving from countries where avian flu has been confirmed.

Reports from Navapur say that the slaughter of birds has been mismanaged in some cases, with some birds being buried alive. The deaths of chickens in two other states — southern Karnataka and eastern West Bengal — sparked fears on Tuesday that the disease was sweeping India, but the authorities quickly moved to quell panic, attributing the deaths to other causes.

KEY WEAPON IN BATTLE TO STOP THE H5N1 VIRUS

Up to 10 million birds could be on hobby farms

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