CHENNAI: The deaths of several crows in Chennai last month has now been attributed to the H5N1 avian influenza.Following a TOI article on the unexplained crow deaths in Adyar, the Tamil Nadu animal husbandry department’s animal disease intelligence unit gathered the samples from the city during the fourth week of Jan and sent them to the ICAR-NIHAS lab in Bhopal. Results verified the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, known for its zoonotic potential.Now, the Union ministry of fisheries, animal husbandry and dairying has written to Tamil Nadu chief secretary confirming the H5N1 spread and urging the state to follow up on strengthening biosecurity and disinfection. It has urged the civic bodies to carry out thorough disinfection in the entire area where bird mortality has been reported.The Union ministry has urged the state to report unusual mortality, intensify poultry surveillance and alert forest and wildlife departments. The ministry said the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) raises serious concerns, and has sought reports on cases, deaths, killed and disposed birds.Key instructions ban bare-handed contact with dead birds; handlers must wear gloves and wash thoroughly with soap and water. Veterinary staff should not perform field postmortems; instead, they must send carcasses to designated regional disease diagnostic laboratories.Officials emphasized safe disposal of either burning or burying dead crows and poultry at least 8-10 feet deep to prevent scavenging animals from spreading the virus. Forest department teams must conduct extensive checks in wooded areas for wild bird deaths.GCC veterinary officer J Kamal Hussain said they have instructed sanitation workers to alert them of group-deaths of crows. “We are identifying land for an 8-10feet burial. We have not reported many deaths in the last week,” he said.The outbreak echoes similar H5N1 detections in Kerala and Bihar too. Globally, the World Health Organization reports 261 human infections from 2003-2024, mostly severe. In India, no human cases have surfaced, said Dr Ram Gopalakrishnan, infectious diseases specialist at Apollo Hospitals. “It’s circulating abroad, but we’ve dodged it so far. Vigilance is key.”
