“We have avian influenza,” Upma Chawdhry, joint secretary of the federal Animal Husbandry Department, told Reuters.

The outbreak was located in a small farm in remote Manipur state in the country’s northeast where 133 chickens out of 144 suddenly died this month, Chawdhry said.

“The state government has been informed and asked to start the control and containment operations,” she said.

Manipur, a remote state that is racked by separatist violence, borders Myanmar, which has fought outbreaks of the H5N1 strain of bird flu among poultry this year

At least 20 people living on the farm were taking Tamiflu, the most popular drug for treating bird flu, as well as six veterinary workers as a “matter of abundant precaution,” Chawdhry said earlier on Wednesday.

Health workers involved in containing the infection in the area will also be given Tamiflu, she said.

The government plans to hold a news conference on Wednesday evening.

India has not reported until now an outbreak of bird flu in its multi-billion dollar poultry industry or among backyard poultry this year, despite nearly a dozen alerts.

India declared itself bird flu free last August after two major outbreaks among chickens in the west of the country in 2006.

Border guards have been ordered to stop people from bringing in poultry illegally from Bangladesh, China and Myanmar, Chawdhry said.

China and Bangladesh — which neighbor India’s northeast — have reported bird flu among chickens this year, with China also reporting human cases and deaths due to the H5N1 strain.

Globally, the H5N1 virus has killed nearly 200 people out of more than 300 known cases, according to the World Health Organisation, while hundreds of millions of birds have died or been slaughtered.

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