Ludhiana, April 30 (PTI): Scientists are working on identification of genes resistant to diseases like pathogenic bird flu to implant these into poultry but it may take six to seven years before it is fully developed.

"It is going to take at least 6 to 7 years for developing totally disease resistant chicken. As of now we have initiated efforts for its which would take about three years and then these genes would be transferred into developing disease resistant chicken which may again take couple of years," a senior scientist of UP-based Central Avian Research Institute told PTI.

Sanjeev Kumar, who is leading this project, said that with help of biotechnological tools, once we develop disease resistant chicken, it would show complete resistance to any sort of diseases including avian influenza, IBD, Marek and other bacterial problems.

Elaborating on the research, he said, "we have found IR genes containing chemokines and cytokines molecules that have shown a good amount of resistance to chicken related diseases."

"We are also in the search of more genes that have maximum resistance power to diseases which would take some more time," Kumar, who was here to participate in a symposium on Poultry Production, said adding we could focus on transferring these genes into high producing chickens.

"Our research has shown that high producing chickens are much vulnerable to diseases such as avian influenza.

Amongst chicken related diseases, bird flu or H5N1 has been the most dangerous disease as ever found. Last year, it caused an economic loss of Rs 1200 crore to Indian poultry industry. In entire Asia, bird flu has resulted into a loss of US $ 10 billion since its emergence.

CARI is the country's biggest poultry research organization in India and it carries out research in diverse areas of developing genetically superior germplasms, cost-friendly feeding regimes, effective shelter management and profitable marketing systems.