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.