Bird Flu - Avian Influenza - news - information

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Bird flu revealed at another Czech farm

Prague- Bird flu was discovered at a broiler farm in Norin, east Bohemia, and tests confirmed it is the highly dangerous H5N1 strain, Roman Linek, deputy governor of the region, told journalists today.

“The virus H5N1 was confirmed at 9:45 this morning,” Linek said.

Norin is located four kilometres(2.5 miles) from Tisova where the first Czech case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu among bred poultry was revealed at a turkey farm last week.

Both farms, Tisova and Norin, are owned by the same agriculture company.

Tests proved bird flu in 60 cases at the Norin farm with 27,800 broilers.

The turkeys bred at Tisova got infected through hay litter, while the broilers allegedly got into indirect contact with a carrier of the virus, man or bird.

Same as in Tisova, the poultry at the Norin farm will be culled and liquidated, the area disinfected and strict measures applied in the vicinity.

The first bird flu case in the Czech Republic was discovered in March 2006. Since then another 14 cases of swans living in the wild have been registered.

Bird flu story source: Czech News

Bird flu spreads to northern Bangladesh

DHAKA, June 27 (Reuters) - Bird flu has spread to another district in Bangladesh forcing health and veterinary workers to cull 5,000 chickens, officials said on Wednesday.

The latest case was reported from a village in Thakurgaon district, 500 km (310 miles) northwest of the capital, Dhaka, said Abdul Motalib, a senior officer of the fisheries and livestock ministry.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu was first detected near the capital Dhaka, in central Bangladesh, in March and has since spread to northern districts.

Sixteen out of Bangladesh’s 64 districts have been affected by the virus.

Bird flu source used in this story: Reuters

New suspected bird flu case in south Vietnam - [Human]

A man from Bac Lieu province has been hospitalized with symptoms of bird flu after cooking and eating a duck which had died allegedly of bird flu.

The 40-year-old man, who is now in the Tropical Disease Hospital in Ho Chi Minh City, has been suffering from severe respiratory problems in the last few days.

He works for a farmer named Tran Van Thong who raises 350 ducklings, some of which died recently.

The province’s animal health authorities said three flocks of ducks in Bac Lieu’s Hong Dan district had died in the last few days with bird flu symptoms.

They had been raised in the neighboring Soc Trang province.

The man and the dead ducks are being tested for the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

Source used in bird flu story: Thanhnien News (Vietnam)

Monday, June 25, 2007

Indonesia reports new bird flu case - (3-year-old girl)

Jakarta, (dpa) - A 3-year-old Indonesian girl has tested positive for bird flu and is being treated in a hospital in eastern Sumatra province of Riau, health ministry officials said Sunday.

The child from the town of Rumbai fell ill on June 18. One day later, she was admitted to the Arifin Achmad hospital in the provincial capital Pakanbaru, suffering from fever but without cough or respiratory problems, ministry spokeswoman Lily Sulistyowati said.

“She was in good condition but is still being treated at the hospital,” Sulistyowati said.

Joko Suyanto from the health ministry’s bird-flu centre said two local tests showed positive for H5N1 virus. He added that the girl had been in contact with dead chickens.

The latest case makes 101 confirmed human cases and 80 deaths in Indonesia, the world’s highest human toll from avian influenza. This year alone, 23 deaths were recorded in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most-populous nation.

Bird flu story source: Bangkok News

Deadly bird flu kills six wild birds, Germany says

HAMBURG, June 25 (Reuters) - Six dead wild birds have tested positive in Germany for a lethal strain of bird flu, authorities said on Monday.

On Sunday, three wild birds found dead in Nuremberg in the southern state of Bavaria tested positive for the dangerous H5N1 strain of the disease.

The number cases has since risen to six, with five swans and one goose infected, the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, a veterinary institution, said.

Authorities continued to investigate the outbreak, the first in Germany this year, which was discovered as part of a national testing programme for dead birds.

Poultry farmers in the Nuremberg region have been ordered to confine all poultry to closed stalls. As of Saturday, a 21-day ban was imposed on bringing poultry or poultry products in or out of the area, which is now a quarantine zone.

City officials also warned cat and dog owners not to allow their pets to roam freely in the quarantine zone.

Bird flu story source: Reuters

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Egyptian boy tests positive for bird flu - report

CAIRO, June 23 (Reuters) - A four-year-old Egyptian boy has tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus, becoming the 37th human case in the Arab country, the official Middle East News Agency reported on Saturday.

It quoted a health ministry statement identifying the boy as Emad Mohamed el-Daramalli from the Upper Egypt province of Qena.

He was admitted to hospital in Qena on Thursday suffering high fever after being exposed to birds suspected of having bird flu, MENA qouted the ministry as saying. He was taken to a hospital in the capital Cairo and is in a stable condition.

Fifteen of Egypt’s bird flu cases have proven fatal.

Daramalli is the third human bird flu case from Qena over the past month after a lull of nearly two months. Egyptian officials had said they expected the virus to lie low during the hot summer, following the pattern it set last year after the initial outbreak in February 2006.

Bird flu story source: Reuters

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Vietnam reports second bird flu death in 10 days

HANOI, June 21, 2007 (AFP) - A 28-year-old woman has died of bird flu in Vietnam, the second person there to succumb to the deadly H5N1 strain in just 10 days, after one-and-a-half years with no deaths, an official said Thursday.

She died Wednesday two weeks after being admitted to a Hanoi hospital that specialises in tropical diseases, said the director of the state-run National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology.

Her death brings to 44 the number of people who have died of bird flu in Vietnam. Last weekend authorities reported the death of a 20-year-old man, who was the first fatality to be announced since November 2005.

Since last month, five human cases of bird flu have been reported in Vietnam, two of whom have died. Two others who had contracted the virus have already been released from hospital.

Communist Vietnam, once the nation worst hit by avian influenza, contained earlier outbreaks through mass vaccination campaigns, the culling of millions of poultry, and public education campaigns.

But the virus has come back strongly this year, hitting scores of poultry farms in an unusual summer-time outbreak, especially in the densely populated northern Red River delta region in recent weeks.

Avian influenza outbreaks have been reported since early May across 18 of Vietnam’s 64 provinces and municipalities, mostly among unvaccinated ducks and other waterfowl.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recently blamed the surge on a rise in unvaccinated ducks grazing in newly harvested rice paddies after Vietnam in March lifted a ban on waterfowl hatching.

Experts warn that ducks can be “silent carriers” of bird flu, spreading the virus through their faeces as they roam across rice fields and ponds while seldom showing symptoms of illness themselves.

The FAO warned Vietnam must ensure good surveillance and response mechanisms, that vaccination campaigns must match breeding cycles and that hatcheries, slaughterhouses and markets must be clean.

Bird flu story source: AFP

Bird Flu Infects Poultry in Czech Republic

Health authorities have confirmed that hundreds of turkeys on a farm in the Czech Republic have died from the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

A government spokesman says the discovery, announced Thursday, marks the first time the virus has been detected in Czech poultry.

He said 1,800 of 6,000 turkeys on the quarantined farm in the center of the country had so far died. He said the rest will be slaughtered.

Bird flu story source: VOA

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Wild ducks carrying bird flu virus registered in Siberia

NOVOSIBIRSK, June 19 (Itar-Tass) - Wild ducks that had been infected with bird flu, but recovered from it were registered in the Altai territory, the Tomsk region, Buryatia and the Ust-Ordyn Buryat autonomous district, a regional department of the Russian agriculture watchdog told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

“These birds either had contact with infected birds or carried the virus themselves to recover,” the source said. “Forty-seven probes exposed genetic material of the virus and presence of antibodies in blood serum.”

Measures are being taken throughout Siberia to prevent bird flu outbreak.

“As of June 19, no bird flu cases of poultry have been registered so far,” the source said.

Around 6 million poultry are located in high-risk zones of the Siberian federal district. Around 4.4 million of them have already been vaccinated.

Bird flu story source: TASS

Monday, June 18, 2007

Hong Kong Closes Bird Market After Finding Avian Flu

June 17 (Bloomberg)—Hong Kong ``temporarily’’ closed the city’s bird market after finding the H5N1 virus in a starling in a shop there, the government said.

Officials detected the virus in a fecal swab sample taken from a Daurian Starling in the bird market on June 4, the Agriculture, Fisheries & Conservation Department said in a statement released late yesterday.

Yuen Po Street Bird Garden will remain closed while stalls are disinfected, the department said. The market, a popular tourist destination in the city’s Mongkok district, is packed with shops selling pet birds, as well cages, live crickets and other accessories.

The department removed all the birds in the shop where the starling was found, and will collect swab samples daily when the market reopens. Stall owners and employees are all under medical surveillance, the statement said. No date was given for the reopening of the market.
Bird flu story source: Bloomberg News Service