July 27, 2005

Russian bird flu outbreak has no risk to humans

Russia's top government epidemiologist said Tuesday that initial tests indicated the country's first recorded outbreak of bird flu was of a strain that does not infect humans.

Gennady Onishchenko told a news conference that the tests suggested the outbreak was of a strain identified by scientists as H5 N2, which is not known to affect humans. The outbreak has killed more than 1,000 birds in the Novosibirsk region this month.

Onishchenko said that officials believed migratory birds brought the virus into the Siberian region.

He said no domesticated fowl had died in the past two days, an indication the outbreak was waning.

Since 2003, bird flu has killed at least 57 people in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia and devastated poultry stocks in the region.