Romania said on Monday it has killed all poultry in the country known to have been infected by bird flu, while officials in Turkey said an outbreak in their country has been brought under control.
The growing threat of bird flu spreading across the continent is 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 are 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 will discuss the outbreak at emergency talks in Luxembourg on Tuesday, while bird flu will dominate a meeting of health ministers later in the week.
In the Far East, where the deadly H5N1 strain first emerged and has killed about 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.
All poultry at the site of Romania’s second outbreak of bird flu have been slaughtered, local authorities said on Monday.
”Slaughtering operations [at Maliuc in south-east 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,” Lefter Chirica, prefect of the Tulcea department said.
He said all the inhabitants of Maliuc and Ceamurlia de Jos, site of the country’s first outbreak, have been vaccinated and are under ”strict medical surveillance” to detect any sign of possible illness.
The two sites have been quarantined and thoroughly disinfected, he said.
Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur told a news conference that tests carried out over the weekend on more than 400 suspect birds ”have all proved to be negative”.
And he announced a mobile laboratory will soon be moved into the Danube delta.
Turkey ‘returning to normal’
Authorities in the Turkish region where the H5N1 strain of bird flu was identified earlier this month said on Monday that life is returning to normal there.
”The [quarantine] precautions will be ended on October 29. From now on, life has returned to normal,” local governor Halil Y Kaya said of conditions in Kiziksa in north-west Turkey, according to newspaper reports.
More than 9 000 birds, most of them chickens, have been slaughtered in the infected zone, which has been disinfected, he said.
Quarantine was imposed on October 8 for three weeks.
The government has said no second outbreak of avian flu has been discovered and ruled out the possibility of an epidemic.
Even so, sales of poultry have plunged and chemists have been besieged by people seeking Tamiflu, the only anti-viral drug believed to be effective against bird flu.
Also on Monday, Michael Leavitt, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, was in Indonesia on the latest leg of a fact-finding tour of the South-East Asia region where the virus has left 60 dead, mostly in Vietnam.
Indonesia has confirmed three deaths from bird flu since the first case of human infection was found in the country in June.
Another two confirmed bird-flu patients are still alive, while there are more than 85 suspected cases in the country. Six people have died with suspected cases of the virus, but are not listed as bird-flu victims.
For the past week, Leavitt has held talks with health officials in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam — the region so far worst hit by the virus and considered the most likely epicentre of any human epidemic.
Myanmar’s military government will not try to hide a bird flu outbreak, the semi-official weekly Myanmar Times reported on Monday, quoting an official who insisted the country remains free of the deadly virus.
”There would be no reason to hide any outbreak of bird flu,” Aung Gyi, head of the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department’s animal health and development division, was quoted as saying, adding that if an outbreak occurs, both the public and the appropriate international organisations will be immediately informed. — Sapa-AFP