Poland has detected the country's first two cases of H5 bird
flu, the agriculture minister said Sunday.
Further tests were being conducted on the wild swans to
determine if it is the deadly H5N1 strain, which has reached
Poland's neighbors, including Germany, Russia, Ukraine and
Slovakia.
Agriculture Minister Krzysztof Jurgiel said the H5 virus was
detected in the swans, which were found dead on Thursday in the
center of Torun, a northern city about 200 kilometers northwest of
Warsaw.
An EU laboratory in Britain was conducting tests on samples from
Poland and results were expected within days, Jurgiel said.
The Polish authorities have informed the European Commission and
have taken precautionary measures.
They have established a high-risk area of 3 kilometers around
the outbreak and a surveillance zone of 10 kilometers. Restrictions
have also been placed on the six poultry farms and four processing
plants in the region.
More cases in Switzerland, Romania
Meanwhile, Switzerland has discovered four further cases of the
H5 bird flu virus in wild birds, the federal veterinary office said
yesterday, bringing the total number of cases found so far to
11.
The virus was found in two dead ducks in Steckborn, a town in
the canton (state) of Thurgau which borders Germany. A dead coot
with the virus was found in the same canton while the fourth case
was a coot discovered in the canton of Zurich.
Samples from the dead birds had been sent for tests at a
laboratory in Britain and it would take a week before it was clear
whether the birds died from the aggressive H5N1 form of the virus,
the office said.
In Romania, new suspected cases were found in a Danube river
village Sunday.
(China Daily March 6, 2006)
