June 25, 2007

Remaining poultry slaughtered in bird-flu affected Czech village

Farmers slaughtered all remaining poultry in the village of Tisova on Friday (June 22), after confirmation a day earlier that hundreds of birds at a turkey farm had died of the H5N1 bird flu virus, officials said.

On Thursday, tests confirmed that 1,800 turkeys at the farm in the eastern Czech Republic died of the H5N1 strain. Tisova is 100 kilometres (60 miles) east of Prague.

The farm's other 6,000 turkeys were slaughtered immediately. About 1,000 hens and ducks kept by other small farmers in the area were ordered to be killed Friday.

"All the poultry in the village is being slaughtered today," said Zbynek Semerad, a spokesman for the Czech veterinary authority.

He said an EU ban on poultry exports from the affected region was in force as of Thursday.