The people of Karassery panchayat in Calicut district spent hours of tension after dozens of bats were found dead in the Kaarimoola neighborhood.The locals hastily informed the officials of the animal husbandry department who then arrived.
“Our officials have collected samples from the dead bats for testing in the lab. The bats themselves have been cremated and incinerated. The test results will take a few days time,” said DR KV Uma, district animal husbandry officer.
The mass death of the bats in Karassery comes in the wake of two strains of bird flu being detected next door in two poultry farms in Kozhikode district. The H5 and H7 strains of the flu under Type-A Influenza were confirmed at the farms through tests after mass death of chickens in poultry farms.
The tension among the residents of Karassery is also due to the Nipah virus outbreak that was reported in Kozhikode in 2018. The source of the viral infection was found to be fruit bats in the area. The outbreak claimed the lives of 18 people in Kozhikode and Malappuram districts.
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