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Israel confirms H5N1 outbreak, culls poultry
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-03-20 09:26
JERUSALEM - Israel said tests showed the avian flu virus that infected
poultry in the south of the country is the lethal H5N1 strain.
Israel
began culling flocks of turkeys and chickens in infected coops over the weekend
after thousands of birds died at three farms.
Officials said on Friday
the avian flu had killed them but they were awaiting the results of laboratory
tests to determine its strain.
The Agriculture Ministry, in a posting on
its Web site late on Sunday, said the tests showed that H5N1, a strain that has
spread across Europe, Africa and parts of Asia and killed at least 98 people
worldwide since 2003, had reached Israel.
It said further culling would
be carried out at farms within a 3-km (2-mile) radius of the infected coops, the
Agriculture Ministry said.
"The situation is under control," the
ministry said in its update on the Internet, urging Israelis to continue to eat
"properly cooked" poultry and eggs.
Although hard to catch, people can
contract bird flu by coming into contact with infected birds. Scientists fear
the virus could mutate into a form that could pass easily between humans,
triggering a pandemic in which millions could die.
Four farm workers in
Israel feared to have caught the virus had not been infected, the Health
Ministry said.
Agriculture Ministry officials said workers were killing
turkey and chickens in the infected areas by poisoning their drinking water and
burying their carcasses in pits.
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