060208 Russia Culls Poultry to Stem Fresh Bird Flu

Bloomberg - Russian authorities killed more than 270,000 chickens in the country's southwestern-most corner to contain a new wave of lethal bird flu, a day after Turkey reported suspected outbreaks in almost a third of its provinces.

Russia's new confirmed H5N1 avian flu infections began more than three weeks ago near the city of Makhachkala in Dagestan Republic, E.A. Nepoklonov, head of the country's veterinary department in Moscow, said in a statement yesterday to the World Organization for Animal Health. Dagestan borders the Russian republic of Chechnya, Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea.

Avian influenza has broken out across western Asia, possibly leading to outbreaks in Eastern Europe and the European Union that have prompted some consumers there to spurn poultry meat. In Turkey, where H5N1 sickened 12 people, killing four this year, more than 1.87 million poultry have been culled during the past two months, the government said in a Feb. 15 report.

``There are 50 suspected cases in domestic birds in 24 provinces and four suspected individual cases in wild birds in four provinces,'' Huseyin Sungur, a veterinary official in Ankara, said in the report, which was filed with the World Organization for Animal Health in Paris. ``Eleven outbreaks in seven provinces were ended.'' Turkey has 81 provinces.

A total of 91 of the 169 people known to have been infected with the H5N1 strain since late 2003 have died, mainly in Southeast Asia, according to the World Health Organization.

Germany, Greece, Italy, Hungary, Slovenia and Austria are among countries reporting outbreaks this month, mostly in swans.

Swans as Indicators

France is testing dead birds, including swans, in as many as 10 regions, said the Agriculture Ministry. Tests so far have been negative. France has asked for all poultry to be moved indoors and has stepped up its monitoring of birds in the past week.

``We are finding it in swans, but swans are more like an indicator species,'' Professor Albert Osterhaus, head of the department of virology at the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, said in a phone interview today. ``Swans are not really migratory birds, they fly only about 50 kilometers a day at the most, and the virus is spreading so rapidly.''

More likely vectors are wild ducks and other migratory birds that share ponds and rivers with the swans. Ducks fly further and are known to carry the virus without showing symptoms of disease, Osterhaus said.

``We are quite worried that we are dealing with a virus that is spreading through other birds'' besides swans, Osterhaus said.

The disease in birds creates more opportunity for human infection and increases the risk of the virus changing into a pandemic form.

Chicken Blitz

Most of the people who have contracted the virus handled infected poultry or came in contact with their excrement. Cooking meat and eggs properly kills the virus, according to WHO.

In Hong Kong, health enforcement officers found an illegal poultry slaughterhouse in a rural area, seizing 1,000 live chickens and 80 dressed poultry and arresting a man, the government said in a statement today. Food & Environmental Hygiene Department officers, acting on a tip, raided the temporary structure in the Lau Fau Shan district northwest of the city.

The city government will ban sales of live fowl in markets by 2009, when it will open a central poultry slaughterhouse, the South China Morning Post reported today, citing an unidentified government official.

The local agriculture ministry planned to hold seminars today and yesterday on mushroom and green house cultivation techniques for Hong Kong's chicken farmers to help them ``stay in agricultural business if they quit poultry farming,'' it said in a statement on Feb. 15.

Flu Vaccines

Fears the H5N1 bird flu virus will mutate and spawn a deadly pandemic-causing variant have focused attention on vaccine supply and lured new suppliers.

CSL Ltd., the world's second-largest maker of blood plasma products, plans a second clinical study of its prototype pandemic flu vaccine after an initial trial in Australia found it didn't trigger an effective immune response in all recipients.

A ``good level'' of protection was achieved in about half the people given a standard dose of 15 micrograms including dissolved aluminum salts that are used as immune stimulant, or adjuvant, Melbourne-based CSL said in a statement today.

``A second study will be undertaken to determine the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine in a larger group of people,'' CSL said in the statement, which was posted on its Web site. ``It will be necessary to trial higher doses of antigen to try and protect as many people as possible, including the elderly and young children.''

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