April 21, 2008

Ukraine finds dead chickens at poultry processing facility
 

Thousands of chickens have been found dead at a Ukrainian poultry processing facility near the northern city Shpol.

Health officials are currently testing carcasses and live birds to determine the cause of death, while state inspectors are sampling domestic and wild bird populations for the presence of H5N1 bird flu virus.

If the deadly H5N1 virus is detected in the testing, the thousands of chickens in the facility would be culled to prevent the spread of the disease.

In January, more than a hundred chickens died from the H5N1 bird flu virus at a farm located at the Black Sea Crimea peninsula.

Ukraine is susceptible to bird flu as it lies directly on a flyway for migratory birds moving from Siberia to the Middle East and Africa.