Sales of poultry products dropped sharply Monday as authorities continued culling thousands of chickens in the West Indian Maharashtra, where the first confirmed case of bird flu was reported, Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) reported in New Delhi.

Officials also stepped up efforts to identify and examine poultry workers in the Navapur village of Nandurbar district in the region, in an effort to fight the global disease.

"The culling process is continuing satisfactorily and is likely to be completed over the next couple of days," IANS quoted T.P. Doke, Maharashtra's director of health services, as saying.

"We are constantly monitoring the condition of seven people who have been admitted in a local hospital here with mild fever. There is no cause for any alarm yet," he added.

The Navapur hospital has been strengthened with an additional 15- bed isolation ward and four ventilators. Two anesthetists and four clinicians have also been added to its regular staff.

Doke said two relatives of a poultry farm owner from Nandurbar district, who died Friday in a hospital at Surat in Gujarat, had been admitted in an isolated ward of a hospital as a precautionary measure.

It is reported that in Delhi, officials said investigations had confirmed that the man who had earlier been suspected to have been affected by bird flu in Sonar had not been infected.

Reacting to reports that poultry traders in the affected region have protested the move to cull thousands of birds, Doke said initially a "small section of them" had been opposed to the idea but were now cooperating with the authorities.

Meanwhile, sale of poultry products, mainly chickens, in major state markets like Mumbai witnessed a sharp plunge as cautious buyers preferred to stay away due to bird flu scare.

In Mumbai's crowded Crawford market, poultry traders said their average sales had plummeted by 40 to 60 percent.

Source: Xinhua