December 22, 2005

 

Ukraine may end bird flu emergency

 

 

Ukraine's government Wednesday asked President Viktor Yushchenko to lift a state of emergency in the Crimean peninsula declared after a bird flu outbreak there, the Interfax news agency reported.

 

Yushchenko put three Crimean regions under an indefinite state of emergency almost three weeks ago after the country recorded its first case of the bird flu.

 

It was the first time since the 1991 Soviet collapse that a state of emergency had been enacted in this country.

 

Emergency Situation Minister Viktor Baloga said that the government believed that quarantine was sufficient to contain the threat, Interfax reported.

 

Earlier this month, UK and Russian tests confirmed that bird flu found in the Black Sea Crimean Peninsula was the same H5N1 strain that has killed humans in Asia.

 

The virus had been found in 11 Crimean villages and health officials say birds were dying in another 14 locations.

 

Ukrainian emergency workers have slaughtered more than 67,000 domestic fowl in an attempt to prevent the spread of bird flu despite strong resistance by impoverished villagers on the peninsula.

 

International experts fear the H5N1 strain of bird flu could lead to 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, health and emergency officials said.