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Source: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/...of-dead-chickens-at-ukraine-poultry-farm.html
Thousands of dead chickens at Ukraine poultry farm
Posted : Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:16:05 GMT
Author : DPA
Kiev - Health inspectors discovered thousands of dead chickens at a Ukrainian poultry farm, with bird flu suspected as the cause, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday. The die-off took place at a poultry-processing plant near the city Shpol, in the northern Cherkassy province.
It was the second reported case of an apparent mass bird infection this year, following the January death of dozens of chickens to the H5N1 bird-flu virus in a Crimea province poultry factory.
Health officials were testing carcasses and live birds to determine the cause of the mass sickness at the Shpol factory. H5N1 however was not yet confirmed, according to the report.
State inspectors were sampling domestic and wild bird populations for presence of the disease in the region, and destroying the dead chickens.
Thousands more live chickens will also be destroyed at the factory if the present of the bird flu virus is confirmed, according to the report.
The last incident of bird flu in Ukraine prior to 2008 was registered in July 2006, when health inspectors detected the disease in domestic poultry in the eastern Sumy region, resulting in the destruction of more than 12,000 chickens, ducks and geese.
The outbreak and a government programme to destroy potentially infected birds brought economic hardship on thousands of lower- income Sumy region rural residents dependant on household fowl for eggs and meat.
Bird flu in 2006 also was found in pelicans living in the marshy Sivash wetland of the Crimean peninsula, but that outbreak did not make the jump to domestic birds, the Health Ministry said at the time.
The disease is a major threat to domestic and wild bird populations in the former Soviet republic, lying directly on a flyway for migratory bird populations moving from Siberia to the Middle East and Africa.
Copyright, respective author or news agency
Thousands of dead chickens at Ukraine poultry farm
Posted : Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:16:05 GMT
Author : DPA
Kiev - Health inspectors discovered thousands of dead chickens at a Ukrainian poultry farm, with bird flu suspected as the cause, the Interfax news agency reported Thursday. The die-off took place at a poultry-processing plant near the city Shpol, in the northern Cherkassy province.
It was the second reported case of an apparent mass bird infection this year, following the January death of dozens of chickens to the H5N1 bird-flu virus in a Crimea province poultry factory.
Health officials were testing carcasses and live birds to determine the cause of the mass sickness at the Shpol factory. H5N1 however was not yet confirmed, according to the report.
State inspectors were sampling domestic and wild bird populations for presence of the disease in the region, and destroying the dead chickens.
Thousands more live chickens will also be destroyed at the factory if the present of the bird flu virus is confirmed, according to the report.
The last incident of bird flu in Ukraine prior to 2008 was registered in July 2006, when health inspectors detected the disease in domestic poultry in the eastern Sumy region, resulting in the destruction of more than 12,000 chickens, ducks and geese.
The outbreak and a government programme to destroy potentially infected birds brought economic hardship on thousands of lower- income Sumy region rural residents dependant on household fowl for eggs and meat.
Bird flu in 2006 also was found in pelicans living in the marshy Sivash wetland of the Crimean peninsula, but that outbreak did not make the jump to domestic birds, the Health Ministry said at the time.
The disease is a major threat to domestic and wild bird populations in the former Soviet republic, lying directly on a flyway for migratory bird populations moving from Siberia to the Middle East and Africa.
Copyright, respective author or news agency
