Hyderabad: Even as people started believing bird flu had ebbed, the death of several hundred birds on the outskirts of Hyderabad has triggered fears that bird flu is back. Deaths of the birds were reported from poultry farms in villages adjacent to Thorrur village, which was the epicentre of the avian flu outbreak last month.

Veterinary teams of Telangana State Animal Husbandry Department collected serum and cloacal samples and sent them to the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases in Bhopal for confirmation. About 500 to 1,000 poultry birds are said to have died.