January 4, 2006

Turkey culls fowls as bird flu precaution

Turkish authorities have culled 448 fowls in an eastern province as a precaution against possible bird flu, following the deaths of some chickens in the area, officials said Tuesday.

The birds were culled in Ezurum province, some 200 kilometres west of Igdir province, near the border with Armenia, where some tested positive for an H5 variant of bird flu last week.

There were no confirmed bird flu cases in Erzurum, but authorities culled the fowls as a precautionary measure, Governor Celalettin Guvenc said, according to the Anatolia news agency.

In October, more than 10,000 fowls were culled in western Turkey, where the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was detected.

Birds in Turkey, Romania, Russia and Croatia recently tested positive for H5N1, but no human cases have been detected.

Turkish health officials Monday said a Turkish teenager--who was tested for possible bird flu--died of pneumonia and that he had tested negative for the bird flu virus.