January 9, 2006

Azerbaijan conducts tests for bird flu

Azerbaijani authorities were conducting tests after hundreds of birds died in the country's south, but officials said initial indications suggested they had not been stricken by bird flu.

About 700 birds died over the last three months in the Masalli district, near the Iranian border. But more than 200 deaths occurred over the last two or three days, raising alarm bells, said Hamid Bashirov, deputy head of the district administration.

Part of Azerbaijan shares a short border with eastern Turkey, where two teenagers died this week from what preliminary tests indicated was the H5N1 bird flu strain.

Bashirov said results of tests on samples sent to the nation's capital, Baku, would be announced in a few days, but "judging by initial signs, this is not bird flu".

The former Soviet republic's chief epidemiologist, Viktor Kasumov, seconded that opinion and said no bird flu cases have been recorded in Azerbaijan.

He said added security measures were being taken on the border with Turkey in Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani enclave separated from the rest of the country by Armenian territory.