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| Europe |
| Russia Confirms Bird Flu Outbreak; Ukraine testing birds |
| 2005-10-19 |
| Russia confirmed an outbreak of a lethal strain of bird flu south of Moscow while Romania said a second location in its Danube River delta area was hit by the virus that has killed 60 people in Asia. About 223 birds of 3,000 on a farm in the Tula region 280 kilometers (170 miles) from Moscow died from the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus, Russia's agriculture ministry said today. The remaining birds are being destroyed. H5N1 in Romania was found in a swan and chicken in a village about 50 kilometers from where the virus was detected earlier this month in another group of birds. ``Unfortunately, what we originally suspected was confirmed today'' in tests at a European Union-approved laboratory near London, Romanian Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur said in a televised speech in Bucharest. Fears that the virus, already capable of jumping to humans from fowl, will mutate into a form transmissible between people has spurred governments to buy up drugs produced by Roche Holdings AG and GlaxoSmithKline Plc. Concerns in Europe have been fueled by the discovery of H5N1 in Turkey and Romania, and Greece this week reported its first suspected case that, if confirmed, will signal the deadly virus has entered the 25-nation EU. The risk of a pandemic, threatening the lives of as many as 7.4 million people, is the highest in more than 35 years, the World Health Organization says. Small Health Risk The general population must differentiate between bird flu and a possible pandemic of a human influenza, said Zsuzsanna Jakab, director of the European Center for Disease Prevention, said today at the EU agency's Stockholm headquarters. The health risk of H5N1 to the general population is minimal, she said. Romania last week quarantined Maliuc and the nearby smaller village of Vulturul after dead domestic and wild birds suspected of carrying the virus were found there, Flutur said. Health workers meanwhile killed all domestic fowl in the two villages as well as in Ceamurlia de Jos, where the bird flu was first detected, and disinfected all the houses in the area, Flutur said. Samples from hundreds of dead birds from counties bordering the Danube delta region have so far not tested positive for the virus, he said earlier today. The Danube delta is Europe's biggest wetland and hub for wild birds migrating from countries north of Romania further south to Africa. The Danube River separates the two Black Sea Romanian counties of Tulcea and Constanta from the rest of the country, making it easier for authorities to monitor and disinfect food transport, cars and trains at bridge crossings. Police Patrols ``We no longer need to send samples for testing to London from locations where we already proved the outbreak because spending more money on that isn't justified,'' Flutur said. Police and health workers are patrolling the Danube delta's waters on speedboats to persuade villagers to keep their poultry fenced in to avoid contact with other birds that may be infected and to gather the bodies of dead wild and domestic birds. Authorities are fining villagers who let their fowl loose, Flutur said. Officials from Romania, Ukraine and Moldova, whose borders meet around the Danube delta, will start daily contacts on bird flu, Flutur said yesterday. Moldova and Ukraine have reported no bird-flu outbreaks yet, though Ukrainian officials have shot some migratory birds and sent their blood to Kiev for analysis, according to a spokesman for the Odessa region in the south. Ukraine's health, defense and agricultural ministries will meet with border guards tomorrow to discuss the situation, Lyudmyla Mukharska, head of the health ministry's epidemic section, said by telephone. Plotting Strategy ``We may have bird-flu epidemic, so we are working out our strategy to prevent it,'' she said. ``We have Tamiflu and other medicine, although we do not have proper supply of them.'' Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu influenza treatment has been shown to fight bird flu. The Swiss drugmaker is under pressure to increase supply by letting other companies make the drug. Tests on a swan found dead in a Romanian lake about six miles from the Ukrainian border indicated it may have been exposed to bird flu, and tests on swans and a duck near the area also showed bird-flu antibodies, Flutur said yesterday. Tests for the virus on 1,200 more birds were negative, he said. |
| Posted by:lotp |
| #1 "The risk of a pandemic, threatening the lives of as many as 7.4 million people, is the highest in more than 35 years, the World Health Organization says." Our open-border policy should put all Americans at risk; more so than leaders whose private compounds are safe. |
| Posted by: Bardo 2005-10-19 20:13 |