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Bird flu spreads fast across Russia

Vladimir Radyuhin

A Chinese man wears a rooster head to publicise bird flu prevention on the streets of Xian, China's Shaanxi province, on Thursday. — PHOTO: AP

MOSCOW: As the bird flu spreads fast across Russia, scientists have warned that the deadly H5N1 virus is only a step away from infecting humans.

More than 800,000 birds have been culled in Russia's southern regions over the past month after the H5N1 strain was detected at three big poultry farms.

The crisis broke out when wild fowl began to migrate last month from Turkey and other warm countries affected by the bird flu.

President Vladimir Putin has ordered the establishment of a government crisis centre after three new outbreaks of the virus in southern Russia.

Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said mass vaccination of domestic fowl in southern Russia had been planned on March 10. Director of the Virusological Research Institute Dmitri Lvov said Russia had developed two vaccines that are expected to be effective against the H5N1 strain.

Serious situation

The Government is to buy from domestic producers 100 million doses of vaccine.

Russia first recorded bird flu in Siberia last July, but that outbreak affected only small farms. Experts warned that this year the situation was going to be much more serious.

Mr. Lvov predicted that the disease would affect most regions with the possible exception of Eastern Siberia and the Far East.

No cases in humans have been detected in Russia so far, but he said it was only a matter of time before the virus mutated to infect people.

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