Fact Check: Old photo of diseased chicken shared as a recent bird flu case in Hyderabad

There have been reports of bird flu in Telangana after Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Amid this, a photo of a skinned chicken (here and here), which appears to have a disease is being widely shared on social media with claims that it is from Hyderabad after the recent reports of the Bird Flu outbreak. Let’s find the truth behind this photo.

The archived post can found here.

Claim: The photo of a diseased chicken is from a recent bird flu outbreak in Hyderabad in 2025.

Fact: The photo is old and has been online since at least 2015. While bird flu has been confirmed in parts of Telangana, the viral photo is unrelated to the recent outbreak. Hence, the claim is FALSE.

To find the reality behind the viral photo, we performed a reverse image search on Google which led us to a Facebook post from April 2015 featuring the same photo. This confirms that the photo being used to claim a bird flu outbreak in Hyderabad today is not recent. Additionally, we found multiple (here, here and here) instances of this same photo being used in similar claims about bird flu in the past.

We also found a few blogs that used this photo in reports about chicken diseases dating back to 2016. This further confirms that the photo is not recent.

At the same time, bird flu has been spreading in a few states in India, including Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Recent reports indicate that it has also been confirmed in Telangana, specifically in the Yadadri district (here and here). However, no cases have been confirmed in Hyderabad yet, though the city remains on alert due to the deaths of many chickens on various farms (here). Several import restrictions have also been imposed on poultry from Andhra Pradesh. However, the viral photo is not related to the recent bird flu cases in Hyderabad.

To sum up, an old photo of a diseased chicken is falsely shared as a recent bird flu case from Hyderabad

(This article was first written by Factly, and republished by Deccan Chronicle as part of the Shakti Collective Fact Check initiative)