April 3, 2007

Russia conducts bird flu vaccinations for poultry in Kamchatka

Russian authorities have started vaccinating poultry against bird flu in the Kamchatka peninsula, local chief veterinary doctor Vitaly Sapunov said Tuesday.

In Sapunov's statement to Russia's official Itar-Tass news agency, over 43,000 doses of vaccine have been sent to the region. Plans are underway for the initial vaccination of more than 22,000 birds from private households and local farms.

However, there are no plans yet to administer vaccines to some 205,000 chickens in the Pionerskaya poultry factory, the biggest of its type in the region, due to restricted access to the facility, Sapunov said.

A swarm of migratory birds arrive in Kamchatka starting from end-April every year, some to nest there and others to stopover before heading north. While some of these birds come from regions affected by bird flu, no cases of the disease have been reported so far in the peninsula.