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Croatia hands out 25 000 chicks
20/11/2005 20:31 - (SA)
Zagreb - Croatia has decided to hand out 25 000 chicks to farmers in two regions whose flocks were destroyed because of a bird flu scare, an agriculture ministry spokesperson said on Sunday, citing a current low risk from the disease.
The risk from the feared H5N1 strain of avian flu was now "almost non-existent" in Croatia, said the spokesperson, Mladen Pavic.
Health authorities detected pockets of the highly pathogenic strain of the H5N1 virus among swans found dead in the villages of Zdenci and Nasice towards the end of October, and responded by killing all poultry within 3km of both sites.
Pavic said poultry farmers in those regions would be required to keep flocks indoors for two more weeks until the end of the wild-bird migration season.
"We are keeping about 30 localities frequented by migratory birds under observation," he said.
Since the discovery of the virus in the swans, health authorities have carried out tests on about 2 000 tissue samples taken from both wild and domestic birds and all have proved negative for the H5N1 virus, Pavic added.
After the outbreak of bird flu in Croatia, the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, banned imports of live poultry and birds from the Balkan country.
The virus was brought to southeastern Europe by migratory birds via Russia. The World Health Organisation fears the disease could mutate and spread from human to human, causing a deadly world pandemic. So far, about 60 people in Asia have died from the disease caused by contact with birds.
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