December 14, 2005

Ukraine confirms new bird flu case in Crimea

Ukrainian laboratory tests Tuesday confirmed another case of bird flu, bringing the total number of affected villages on the Crimean Peninsula to 13, health officials said.

The new results came as the government added another city to its monitoring amid reports of new bird deaths, the Health Ministry said.

Ten other places in the Crimea have reported mass bird deaths, and are under investigation, emergency and health officials have said. Crimea's regional capital, Simferopol, is one of the areas being monitored; another city, Krasnoperekopsk was added Tuesday. It was not immediately clear how many birds had died.

Ukraine recorded its first case of bird flu Dec 4 as some 2,500 birds died on the Black Sea peninsula. The area affected is covered by marshy wetlands near the Azov Sea and is a popular resting place for migratory birds.

So far all the cases of confirmed bird flu have been confined to those three regions where the virus first appeared, but reports of dead birds have spread to other parts of the peninsula.

Experts fear the H5N1 strain of bird flu could trigger a human flu pandemic if it mutates into a form that is easily spread between people. Since 2003, the virus has killed at least 69 people in Asia-most of them farm workers who came into close contact with infected birds.

No cases of human infection have been recorded in Ukraine, officials said. Some 25,284 people have been given urgent flu vaccinations, and 436 people--who had close contact with the dead birds--are under special observation, the Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement.