Croatia confirm bird flu

[ukcz]

Croatia tests dead swans for bird flu

14 Feb 06

CROATIA said today it was carrying out bird flu tests on eight wild swans found dead in the past three days.

Zagreb earlier banned poultry imports from neighbouring Slovenia, Bulgaria, Greece and Italy, after bird flu was found in those countries.

"Eight swans have been taken to the Croatian Veterinary Institute for tests to see if they are carrying the bird flu virus," Mladen Pavic, ministry of agriculture spokesman, said.

He said the results of the tests would be announced shortly.

Six of the dead swans were found in a village around 40km from the capital Zagreb, one was discovered on a lake in Zagreb and the eighth in another location around 40km from the city.

The European Commission announced on Sunday that a dead swan had been found in Slovenia with H5-type bird flu.

Further tests were under way to determine whether it was the H5N1 strain of the virus, which is fatal for humans.

H5N1 was confirmed in wild swans in Greece, Italy and Bulgaria at the weekend.

The H5N1 virus, which has claimed at least 90, mostly Asian, lives since 2003, was detected in two northeastern Croatian villages in October 2005 but the authorities said they had halted its spread with strict quarantine and culling measures.

http://www.sundaytimes.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,18142594%255E1702,00.html

[DB]

Croatia confirm bird flu

http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/condi...flu.wrap.reut/

Hungary, Croatia confirm bird flu

BRUSSELS, Belgium (Reuters) -- The H5N1 strain of bird flu was confirmed in Hungary and Croatia on Tuesday as the deadly virus spread around the globe, while EU officials considered measures to vaccinate millions of birds in France and the Netherlands.

In India, where officials are scrambling to contain a major outbreak in poultry, hundreds of people turned up for screening at medical camps in areas where bird flu has been reported.
At least 15 nations have reported outbreaks in birds this month, an indication that the virus, which has killed more than 90 people, is spreading faster.
Migratory birds are thought to be at least one way the disease is being carried and more than 30 countries have now reported cases since 2003, seven of them recording human infections.
Hungary said on Tuesday that tests showed the virus in three dead swans found last week, while Croatia also confirmed H5N1 had been found in a dead swan on an island in the Adriatic.
Bosnia confirmed its first cases of bird flu on Monday, while Malaysia said the H5N1 avian flu virus killed chickens near the capital.
In Brussels, EU animal health experts met to consider requests from France and the Netherlands, among Europe's biggest poultry producers, to be allowed to vaccinate millions of birds against avian influenza.
"The Commission is considering plans that were submitted last night by the French and Dutch authorities," a European Commission official told reporters.
"Every country that wants to do preventive vaccination has to submit a plan, explaining the controls that they will apply to distinguish between vaccinated and non-vaccinated animals," he said.
In London, the famous ravens at the Tower of London were brought inside to protect them from bird flu. Legend has it that if the ravens leave the Tower, where the Crown Jewels are stored, the Kingdom will fall.
The World Health Organization said that while no human cases of bird flu had been found in India, Egypt or Nigeria -- countries where H5N1 has been found in birds -- transmission risks remain as long as the virus is present.
"There is really no time frame. As long as the virus is circulating it could jump into humans," WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told a press briefing in Geneva.
But scientists say the virus has already developed the ability to infect more species of animals and the fear is H5N1 could eventually mutate to pass easily from human to human.
In India, 10 people have been quarantined as officials scrambled to contain a major outbreak of bird flu in poultry before it took hold in the world's second most populous nation.
So far, there are no confirmed human cases but thousands of people have been tested just in case.
"About 500 people have walked into makeshift medical camps in Navapur (town) to get checked for cough and cold since Monday evening," said T.P. Doke, health director of the western state of Maharashtra.
Doke said authorities had completed a door-to-door search in Navapur where 30,000 people had been examined. Another Maharashtra state official said about 300,000 birds have been culled so far with tens of thousands more to be killed.
Malaysia stepped up its defenses against bird flu on Tuesday, killing poultry and sending health officials to track any human infections, after it reported its first case of the H5N1 virus in more than a year.
Zambia allocated $4,000 to the fight against bird flu, a sum critics derided as far too small to have any impact.
The fresh case of bird flu hit shares of poultry farms and prompted neighbor Singapore to suspend imports from the central Malaysian state of Selangor, where officials said the virus had killed 40 chickens last week.
In Europe, officials urged people to carry on eating poultry meat after a string of outbreaks in birds. But with demand falling, poultry farmers in Greece warned they could soon be forced out of business.
The WHO says thoroughly cooked poultry meat and eggs are safe to eat but that assurance has failed to calm consumers.
China's agriculture minister told state media more bird flu outbreaks were possible this spring because of the movement of migratory birds after the winter and more shipping of poultry as the new breeding season begins.
State media said on Tuesday the government has banned imports of pet and wild birds from 10 countries recently hit by bird flu.