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Deadly bird flu confirmed in Romania
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-10-16 09:26
BUCHAREST - Laboratory tests showed on Saturday that the same deadly
H5N1 strain of bird flu as that found in Turkey and Asia had infected ducks in
Romania, confirming the virus had reached mainland Europe.
A British laboratory testing Romanian samples established that three birds
found dead in the Danube delta last week contained the H5N1 strain, which has
killed more than 60 people and caused the death of millions of birds in Asia
since 2003.
Romanian gendarmes
throw plastic bags with dead domestic bird culled on suspicion of bird flu
disease in the village of Ceamurlia de Jos, 300 km (186 miles) east of
Bucharest in this October 14, 2005 picture. Lab tests in Britain confirmed
that an outbreak of bird flu in Romania is that of the highly pathogenic
H5N1 strain, Romania's state veterinarian authority said on Saturday.
[Reuters] | The World Health Organization's top
influenza expert, echoing previous warnings, said the virus could mutate into a
form that could kill thousands or millions of people around the world and urged
governments to prepare for such a pandemic.
But encouraging news came from China, where state media said a new, improved
vaccine for birds had been developed, a low-cost spray that could protect them
from the H5N1 strain of avian flu.
The spread of the virus in Asia has been blamed on backyard farms and
open-air markets where humans and birds mingle in often unsanitary conditions,
and authorities have been unable to wipe it out despite large-scale culling and
vaccination.
In Turkey, the state Anatolian news agency reported that nearly 1,000
chickens had died in the east, near the Iranian border, after being transported
from the west of the country. It said samples had been sent for tests for
possible bird flu, but did not say where exactly the birds had been moved from.
A Turkish Health Ministry official said earlier that nine people under
observation in hospital for possible bird flu had been allowed to go home as
tests showed they were not infected.
Turkish officials also said the incubation period for the avian flu found on
a farm in the northwest was over, and the danger to humans had passed.
The EU Commission in Brussels confirmed that the H5N1 strain found in
Romanian ducks was exactly the same as that detected in Turkish birds. "The link
has now been confirmed," Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos
Kyprianou said in a statement.
Kyprianou said the European Union had already banned poultry and live bird
imports from Romania, so no further measures were needed. EU veterinary experts
will meet on Thursday to review the situation, he added.
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