June 8, 2006

Bird flu eradicated in Russia's Novosibirsk region

Russia's Agriculture Ministry said Wednesday (Jun 7) that outbreaks of bird flu have been eradicated in the Novosibirsk region, news agency Prime-Tass reported.

However, as of Wednesday, outbreaks of bird flu had been registered in two other regions of the Siberian Federal District, in particular, in four localities of the Omsk Region and in two localities of the Altai Region, the ministry said.

As of May 29, outbreaks had been registered in three localities of the Novosibirsk region, five localities of Omsk region and in two localities of the Altai region, the ministry said earlier.

Thus, outbreaks of the disease have been eradicated in all three localities of the Novosibirsk region and in one locality of the Omsk region.

Since the beginning of 2006, bird flu has been discovered in 90 localities in 11 regions of the Southern Federal District and three regions of the Siberian Federal District. Veterinarians have managed to eradicate outbreaks of the disease in 80 localities of the Southern Federal District and also in four localities of the Siberian Federal District.

Around 1.38 million domestic birds have died or have been culled in bird flu outbreaks in Russia since early January.