December 5, 2005
Romania detects three new bird flu cases
Authorities have quarantined another village in eastern Romania after three chickens tested positive for the H5 subtype of bird flu, officials said Sunday.
Animal-health workers began Sunday to cull about 8,000 domestic birds in Cioacile, a village located in Braila County, where the H5 bird flu was detected last week in three other villages.
¡°We hope to finish culling and disinfecting the area by tomorrow (Monday),¡± said Gabriel Predoi, who heads the National Agency for Animal Health.
Further tests will determine whether the virus is the deadly H5N1 strain, which is being monitored worldwide after it devastated poultry in Asia and killed at least 69 people.
Romania has already confirmed H5N1 in the Danube delta villages of Ceamurlia de Jos, Maliuc and Caraorman.
The virus is believed to have been brought by migratory birds that have arrived in the delta, a large wetland reservation, from Russia.
Authorities have moved quickly to cull birds in infected areas and have ordered people to keep their domestic fowl confined, but the measures appear to have failed to stop the virus from spreading beyond the delta.
The Braila region, which neighbors the delta, also attracts migratory birds with its many ponds, lakes and large fields of grain, said Predoi.
¡°The (warm) outside temperature has also made the birds stick around longer,¡± he added. Authorities are trying to determine how the virus has infected the poultry in the area, and whether a ban on letting domestic ducks and geese roam freely was enforced strictly by local authorities.
The migration season is at its peak in Romania's delta region, with hundreds of thousands of birds expected to leave soon for warmer regions.
Birds in Turkey, Romania, Russia and Croatia recently have tested positive for the deadly flu strain. Ukraine has also detected in recent days an H5-subtype of bird flu, and authorities there are testing to see whether the birds were infected with the H5N1 virus.
