December 6, 2005

 

Ukraine says bird flu outbreak under control

 

 

Ukraine's president said Monday that the outbreak of bird flu appears to have been contained, but urged Ukrainians to be vigilant and cooperate with authorities.

 

Health officials, meanwhile, scrambled to give flu shots to thousands of people living in the six infected villages--all under quarantine--on the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea.

 

"We have taken radical measures to solve the problem," President Yushchenko said during a visit to Nekrasivka, one of the worst-infected villages.

 

"What is important is that the government and the people are confronting this issue today in an organised manner," he said. "Ukraine managed to localise the threat."

 

Yushchenko met with residents, veterinarians, emergency workers and soldiers brought in to help contain the outbreak of the H5 strain of bird flu. Ukraine officially recorded its first case Saturday, and Yushchenko immediately declared a state of emergency in three Crimean regions, all located in the marshlands near Lake Sivash.

 

It was the first appearance of bird flu in this ex-Soviet republic, which borders the EU.

 

Samples from the dead birds have been sent to laboratories in Italy and the UK to determine whether the disease could be the deadly H5N1 strain, which is being monitored for fear it could mutate into a form that is easily transferable among humans. Results are expected by Thursday.

 

At least 68 people have died from the H5N1 bird flu virus since it emerged in Asia in 2003, and the deadly strain has been recorded in birds in Romania, Turkey, Croatia and Russia.

 

While in Nekrasivka, Yushchenko said that the state of emergency would probably be lifted in about two weeks, and the quarantine would likely last 40 days, his office said. Earlier, some officials had suggested the state of emergency could be lifted as early as Tuesday.

 

Yushchenko promised that all six villages--home to some 6,969 people--would receive all necessary medicine and equipment.