Israel’s Agriculture Ministry confirmed on Monday that the bird flu virus which hit the country on Friday was spreading, with two new communities affected by the virus.
The latest two locations, in southern Israel, to be hit by the bird flu are within a 10km radius of the four communities already affected by the deadly virus.
Israeli media reported that turkeys from one of the new infected communities had been sent for slaughter on Sunday, and ministry officials were trying to find and stop the trucks carrying them.
Top Israeli officials were scheduled to hold an urgent meeting on Monday on ways to stop the disease from spreading and on how to deal with it.
Initial reports that bird flu had struck Israel surfaced on Friday afternoon, and authorities began a massive cull of poultry over the weekend.
Farmers, joined by former agriculture minister Yisrael Katz, blasted the government’s response to the discovery of the virus and called on it to declare the outbreak a state of emergency.
Current Agriculture Minister Ze’ev Boim, however, told Israel Radio that the outbreak of the virus was still on a local scale, and had not yet reached national proportions.
”We are speaking about infections in six flocks in four locations when there are thousands of flocks in Israel in a vast number of locations,” a senior Agriculture Ministry official said.
Israeli farmers raise an estimated 200-million birds for food each year. — Sapa-DPA