Egypt on alert for bird flu
2005-10-18 08:32
Cairo - Egypt has set up 27 observation posts along its borders to collect statistics about migratory birds potentially infected with the deadly bird flu virus, an agriculture ministry official said on Monday.
"The posts were already in place to observe wildlife but now we will sample out migrating birds and collect statistics," Abdelkhaliq Abbas said.
The migration of wild birds takes place in the fall when they fly from eastern and southern Europe over Egypt to seek warmer temperatures further south.
Abbas ruled out the possibility of infected wild birds contaminating domestic birds.
"The country's privately or publicly-owned chicken, turkey and most importantly quail farms are all indoors," he said, adding the measure had been taken long before the avian flu outbreak.
Egypt banned last Tuesday all live poultry imports and called off this year's wild bird hunting season in an effort to keep out the flu.
Aviation authority extra vigilant
Egypt normally imports turkey poults and ducklings from France and Germany.
Last week, Egyptian authorities announced they had quarantined 12 000 one-day-old turkeys imported from Germany after suspecting them of carrying avian flu, but released the fowl after they tested negative.
The aviation authority is exerting extra vigilance with tourists coming from infected countries and can quarantine them for checks when in doubt.
Egypt shares borders with Libya, Israel, the Gaza Strip and Sudan where no case of bird flu has been reported so far.
The country closest to Egypt in which birds were infected with the H5N1 killer form is Turkey.
The World Health Organisation fears the H5N1 virus may mutate, acquiring genes from the human influenza virus that would make it highly infectious to humans and lethal, capable of potentially killing millions worldwide.
- SAPA