CUDDALORE – 15 Nov, 2026 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N1) has been confirmed in chicken samples collected from a poultry farm at Kattiyankuppam village in Kurinjipadi taluk of Cuddalore district.
The confirmation has triggered a full-scale containment operation, with the Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Services Department culling all birds in the affected farm and within a one-kilometre radius of the epicentre.
According to Senthil Kumar: “As many as 35,647 bird deaths were recorded in the affected belt till November 13, since the first case of sudden mortality was reported from a farm at Thamanampatti village in Thiyagavalli Panchayat on October 30.”
He added, “Veterinary teams that visited the farm on the day of the first report collected samples and sent them to the Poultry Disease Diagnostic Laboratory (PDDL) in Namakkal.”
As deaths mounted in neighbouring farms, further samples were routed to Poultry Disease Diagnosis and Surveillance Laboratory (PDDL) Erode and the Central University Laboratory (CUL) at Madhavaram in Chennai.
On November 5, a carcass sample was despatched to NIHSAD Bhopal, which confirmed H5N1 on November 13, he said.
Following the standard operating procedure under the National Action Plan, the district was divided into compartments to restrict the spread of the disease.