Jordan destroys poultry

2006-03-25 19:27

Amman - Jordan has destroyed all poultry within a three-kilometre radius of a village where bird flu killed up to four domesticated turkeys north of the capital, an Agriculture Ministry official said on Saturday.

Dr Faisal Awawdeh, assistant secretary-general for livestock at the ministry, said Jordan was taking stringent measures to combat avian flu in poultry after the first cases of the deadly H5N1 strain were found in birds on Thursday.

Tests showed that up to four turkeys that died in the northern village of Kafranjeh, on the outskirts of Ajloun, were infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.

"We have destroyed all poultry within the first circle - a 3-kilometre radius of where the virus was discovered. A second circle of 7-kilometres beyond the infection point is under severe control and surveillance," Awawdeh told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Awawdeh said that no new cases had been discovered beyond the first ones. A lab in Italy authorized by the World Health Organization was doing additional testing to confirm the Ajloun cases, he said, but did not give the its name or location.

Meanwhile, the Amman municipality had closed its popular 'Bird Garden' as precaution, while officials were vaccinating egg-laying chickens and monitoring poultry farms closely.

Jordan has not announced any human cases of the avian flu.

But as afflicted birds continue to appear across the region, countries that are free of the virus fear they will be next.

Saudi Arabia's Health Minister Hamed al-Manai voiced such concerns to journalists on Saturday, but said the kingdom was taking stringent precautions to avoid an outbreak.

- AP