HYDERABAD, March 11: Officials of the livestock and fisheries department on Friday obtained 11 samples of chicks of a poultry farm in Qasimabad for tests to confirm if there was any bird flu case in the district.

The samples were taken in the wake of death of 800 chicks on account of ‘new castle disease’, commonly known as ND, in the poultry farm. Four hundred chicks died on Friday alone.

The district officer, poultry development, Dr Mohammad Asghar Arain, told Dawn that five samples each pertained to blood and cloacal swab and one was related to tissues.

After the death of chicks, a team of the livestock and fisheries department visited the Ghulam Dastagir poultry farm.

According to Dr Arain, chicks in the farm needed scheduled vaccination against ND which was a part of vaccination against 10 to 15 diseases.

Before the ND, he said, chicks of the same farm had been attacked by another disease, called infectious bursal, which badly affected the immunity system of the broiler. He said the disease had travelled form a nearby poultry farm.