Kuwait finds two bird flu cases in chickens
Pastor Dale Morgan
Kuwait finds two bird flu cases in chickens*
From correspondents in Kuwait
March 04, 2007 12:47am
Article from: Reuters
KUWAIT said today it had found two new cases of the deadly H5N1 strain
of bird flu in chickens, raising to 48 the total number of infected
birds in the Gulf Arab country this year.
“The new cases were traced to the bird market in the al-Rai area,”
Health Ministry official Ahmed al-Shatti said.
He said 121 handlers and their families had tested negative for the
disease while thousands of birds have been culled in a campaign by the
government to prevent the spread of the disease that had led to a ban on
live bird imports.
The bird market and Kuwait's zoo are shut while poultry shops in
residential areas are being closed for three months.
Kuwait confirmed 39 cases of bird flu last month but said 20 of them
were found in falcons at the zoo and a farm in the south of the country.
The rest did not belong to poultry farms but were domestic birds caged
in private yards.
It last reported a case of bird flu in a flamingo in 2005.
Avian flu has killed 167 people worldwide since 2003, according to the
UN World Health Organisation. At least 200 million birds have died or
been slaughtered.