Romania culls bird flu poultry
2005-10-17 16:24
Bucharest - Romania said on Monday that it had killed all poultry in the country known to have been infected by bird flu, while officials in Turkey said an outbreak in their country had been brought under control.
The growing threat of bird flu spreading across the continent was set to top the agendas of European Union leaders this week, after the deadly Asian strain of the virus landed in the continent for the first time.
Scientists and the EU's political chiefs were trying to ease public concern after the H5N1 virus was confirmed in Romania - two days after its presence was identified in Turkey.
EU foreign ministers would discuss the outbreak at emergency talks in Luxembourg on Tuesday, while bird flu would dominate a meeting of health ministers later in the week.
All poultry slaughtered
In the Far East, where the deadly H5N1 strain first emerged and had killed some 60 people since 2003, the top United States health official held meetings with Indonesian ministers and Myanmar pledged it would be open about any outbreak.
Local authorities said on Monday that all poultry at the site of Romania's second outbreak of bird flu had been slaughtered.
Lefter Chirica, prefect of the Tulcea department, said: "Slaughtering operations (at Maliuc in southeast Romania in the Danube delta) were finalised during the night.
"All the same, veterinarians are going to comb the village again to make sure no birds are left."
Medical surveillance
He said all the inhabitants of Maliuc and Ceamurlia de Jos - site of the country's first outbreak - had been vaccinated and were under "strict medical surveillance" to detect any sign of possible illness.
He said the two sites had been quarantined and thoroughly disinfected.
Agriculture minister Gheorghe Flutur said tests carried out over the weekend on more than 400 suspect birds "have all proved to be negative".
He said a mobile laboratory would soon be moved into the Danube delta.
Authorities in the Turkish region, where the H5N1 strain of bird flu was identified earlier this month, said on Monday that life was returning to normal there.
Infected zone
According to newspaper reports, local governor Halil Y Kaya, said: "The (quarantine) precautions will be ended on October 29. From now on life has returned to normal."
He said more than 9 000 birds, most of them chickens, had been slaughtered in the infected zone, which had been disinfected.
Quarantine was imposed on October 8 for three weeks.
The government had said no second outbreak of avian flu had been discovered and ruled out the possibility of an epidemic.
Even so, sales of poultry had plunged and people seeking Tamiflu, the only anti-viral drug believed to be effective against bird flu, had besieged chemists.
US secretary of health and human services Michael Leavitt was in Indonesia on the latest leg of a fact-finding tour of the Southeast Asia region, where the virus had left 60 dead.