[Mb-civic] Bird Flu Suspected at Big Russian Farm - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Bird Flu Suspected at Big Russian Farm
Presence of Deadly Virus, if Verified, Would Be the Nation's Biggest 
Outbreak

By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, August 21, 2005; Page A15

MOSCOW, Aug. 20 -- Russian officials have quarantined a large poultry 
farm in Siberia because of a suspected outbreak of bird flu, news 
reports said Saturday. If confirmed, it would be the first major 
occurrence of the lethal virus among birds in Russia, and international 
health officials expressed concern that the disease had spread closer to 
Western Europe.

About 142,000 birds are being monitored at a commercial farm in the Omsk 
region of Siberia, 1,400 miles east of Moscow, the Russian news agency 
Interfax reported, quoting a federal agency that tracks the disease. The 
presence of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza was reported last 
month in Siberia, but only among wild birds and free-range chickens on 
small family farms.

Avian influenza has killed at least 61 people in Vietnam, Thailand and 
Cambodia since early last year, mostly farmers and poultry workers in 
close contact with the animals. Millions of birds have been slaughtered 
in Asia in an attempt to control the disease.

The World Health Organization has warned that the viral strain affecting 
chickens, ducks and wild fowl could develop into a form that spreads 
easily among humans, exposing millions of people to the disease. The 
exact means of transmission is unclear, and it is not conclusively known 
whether the disease can be contracted from eating infected poultry.

WHO reported Thursday that the spread of the H5N1 strain in Russia "is 
of concern because it creates further opportunities for human exposure."

Russian officials said there have been no human infections since the 
virus was detected last month.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/20/AR2005082001152.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20050821/0e0cb97f/attachment.htm