January 10, 2006

Turkey allots US$37 million against bird flu, bans outdoor poultry breeding

Turkey's Agriculture and Rural Affairs Ministry Monday said it is spending YTL50 million (US$37.41 million) to contain the bird flu virus, Ihlas News Agency reported Monday.

The ministry said YTL17 million has already been allotted from the 2006 budget to fight animal diseases. About YTL8 million has been spent since bird flu was detected in chickens in the Eastern Turkish province of Igdir Dec 27, while the finance ministry provided an extra YTL25 million to the agriculture ministry on Monday.

The ministry is also now drafting a legislation to ban outdoor poultry breeding after the health ministry confirmed five new cases of bird flu in humans, officials said.

With fourteen people in the country now stricken with the disease, including two who have died, health authorities said that nearly all 14 human cases had been in close contact with sick chickens.

Most of those infected come from impoverished rural areas, where people breed poultry in their homes for their own consumption and to sell their eggs. The people also often take them indoors during the winter, thus providing the ideal conditions for contamination.

Four of the infected people are from the northern provinces of Samsun, Kastamonu and Corum, while the fifth is in the eastern province of Van, said Turan Buzgan, head of the ministry's basic health services department. Three of the 14 ill people live in the capital Ankara.

It was not immediately clear whether the virus was of the H5N1 strain.

Turkish health officials consider the destruction of poultry in affected areas as the best way to avoid the spread of bird flu. Specially dressed and equipped teams have begun culling birds from infected areas in special gas chambers and burying them in lime pits.

About 102,000 birds--geese, chickens, ducks, turkeys and pigeons--have been culled throughout Turkey since bird flu was detected in Eastern Anatolia, the agriculture ministry said, with compensation paid to bird owners ranging YTL3-20, depending on the kind of bird and social-economic conditions of the region.