May 12, 2006

Russia expects bird flu outbreaks in Siberia

Outbreaks of the highly pathogenic bird flu are likely to occur in Siberia later this month, Sergei Dankver, the head of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Control, said Thursday (May 11), according to the Prime-Tass news agency.

"We have come to the conclusion that small outbreaks of bird flu are possible in the Tomsk, Novosibirsk and Altai regions," Dankvert said. Wednesday, the disease was registered in a village in the Novosibirsk region. Those cases affected some domestic birds that had not been vaccinated.

Veterinarians have managed to eradicate outbreaks of the disease in southern Russia, Dankvert added. "The situation is fully under control. It is quite possible that we'll be able to avoid massive outbreaks this year," he said.

Earlier, the service expected the peak of the outbreaks to occur in July with Siberia and the Central European part of Russia worst hit.

Russia is carrying out a large-scale programme of bird vaccinations. Over 27 million domestic birds were vaccinated between January and April.