India bans import of livestock and its products

The government today announced a ban on the import of select live-stock and its products in the wake of the spread of the deadly swine flu.

''Import of live-stock and live-stock products shall be prohibited from all countries, in view of notifiable Avian Influenza," directorate general of foreign trade (DGFT) said in a notification.

The DGFT ban on imports includes domestic and wild birds (excluding poultry and captive birds), unprocessed meat and meat products from avian species, wild birds, and the semen of domestic and wild birds.

It also prohibited import of live poultry, eggs and their products, live pigs, pathological material and unprocessed feathers from countries reporting avian influenza.

The ban comes in the wake of reports of five cases of swine flu in the country.  The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported 21,940 laboratory confirmed cases of influenza A/H1N1 infection from 69 countries as of 5 June 2009. There have been 125 deaths. 

Health screening of passengers coming from affected countries is continuing in 21 International airports.  A total of 45,864 passengers were screened today, of whom around 18,826 were from affected countries.

The government has deployed 221 doctors and 88 paramedics to man 76 counters at the country's airports.

So far samples of 176 persons have been tested of which five have been tested positive for novel Influenza A [H1N1]. The rest of the samples have been found negative for the novel virus. Sample of one person is under process. Of these, 62 were identified through health screening at International Airports and the rest were samples from persons who have self reported.