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Romania kills thousands of birds in bid to check flu

E.U. says measures taken to prevent spread of pandemic

BUCHAREST: Authorities were culling thousands of domestic birds in the Danube Delta region on Sunday to prevent the spread of a deadly strain of bird flu that has decimated flocks and killed dozens of people in Asia.

Officials said they were also awaiting test results from a British laboratory on samples sent from Maliuc, a village about 30 km from Ceamurlia de Jos, where the H5N1 bird flu strain was first detected in Romania.

Authorities around the world fear the H5N1 strain could mutate into a form that can be passed among people, leading to a flu pandemic which some say could potentially kill millions.

Romanian officials said all domestic birds in Ceamurlia de Jos were killed and the village was being disinfected, but the area would remain under quarantine for 21 days before it could be declared free of the virus.

``We finished [killing domestic fowl] in Ceamurdia de Jos,'' said Gabriel Predoi, who heads the national Agency for Animal Health.

Disinfection on

Authorities were spraying chemicals in resident's yards and homes on Sunday, including around their refrigerators, kitchens and other areas which may have come in contact with infected birds.

Though H5N1 is highly contagious among birds, it is difficult for humans to contract. Still, it has killed about 60 persons in Asia, mostly poultry farmers infected directly by birds, since 2003.

The European Union's top public health official, Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou, sought to calm public fears on Saturday, stressing that no further measures to prevent the disease spreading from Romania and Turkey were immediately needed following E.U. bans on imports of their poultry last week.

In Turkey, authorities disinfected village Kiziksa, 120 km from Istanbul, and said while the H5N1 virus detected there had been contained, there were still risks of new outbreaks in other parts of the country. — AP

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