H5N1 bird flu virus confirmed in eight Moscow suburbs
Pastor Dale Morgan
H5N1 bird flu virus confirmed in eight Moscow suburbs*
24.02.2007
Laboratory tests confirmed the lethal H5N1 bird flu strain in eight
districts of the Moscow region. Nikolai Vlasov, head of agriculture
oversight agency Rosselkhoznadzor, told reporters that increased
awareness about bird flu had led to a rush of calls from people
reporting bird deaths.
There were now eight territories where H5N1 has been confirmed, three of
which were recently added, he said.
Russian news reports cited local officials as saying, meanwhile, that a
ninth suburban district had reported poultry dying of bird flu. The
report could not immediately be confirmed.
The virus, which began killing domestic birds in the Moscow suburbs on
Feb. 9, has been traced to a single animal market just outside the capital.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said Wednesday that at least 333
domestic birds have died since Feb. 9, and an additional 1,833 have been
killed at eight locations on Moscow's outskirts, the AP reports.
Officials have enforced a quarantine around the affected districts,
spraying down vehicle tires and vaccinating poultry.
Some residents of Ramenskoye, a town southeast of the capital, said they
had seen no signs of dead poultry.
"I never noticed anything strange, or any signs of disease. They
(chickens) are very healthy, they eat their food as usual, I give them
snow instead of water," Lyudmila Gorbatova told Associated Press
Television News.
No human cases of bird flu have been reported in Russia, which had its
first reported cases of H5N1 in Siberia in 2005. Outbreaks have since
occurred farther west, but mostly in southern areas far from the capital.
Since it began ravaging Asian poultry farms in late 2003, the H5N1
strain has killed at least 167 people worldwide, according to the World
Health Organization.