Russia registers new outbreak of bird flu
Pakistan Times Wire Service

MOSCOW: Russia has registered its first cases of the deadly H5N1 bird flu since an outbreak hit dozens of towns and villages last year, Russian media reported Monday.

"A laboratory analysis uncovered the H5N1 bird flu virus," in poultry at three locations in the southern Krasnodar region, said Aleksei Alekseyenko, an official at the country's agricultural inspection agency Rosselkhoznadzor, a Russain news agency reported.

"A series of anti-epizootic measures are being undertaken in the unfortunate areas to control the infection," he said.

The three infected areas are located near the country's Black Sea coast.

Bird flu was discovered at over 90 points in southern Russia and Siberia in 2006, with the last quarantine lifted in August.

Earlier Monday, the European Commission confirmed the first outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in the European Union since mid-2006 after tests on Hungarian geese proved positive.

Last week Japan and Hong Kong reported fresh cases of strains of the virus, and Indonesian authorities said an eight-year-old girl had become the latest person in the country to die from it.

The H5N1 virus can be deadly to humans and its appearance in recent years has sparked fears it could mutate and become easily transmissible from human to human, causing a pandemic like the Spanish flu in 1918 which killed millions of people.

The virus has killed about 160 people worldwide since late 2003, mostly in Asia. No human fatalties from the virus have been reported in Russia.●