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China and Europe face new avian flu outbreaks
October 19,
2005
China has
announced a new outbreak of avian flu today along with similar cases in
Russia, Romania and Macedonia.
China's news
agency reported that 2,600 birds have died of the H5N1 strain in northern
China, declaring that the outbreak was found in a breeding facility in
Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia.
The government
maintains the epidemic is under control.
Russia is
waiting for confirmation that it was the H5N1 strain that killed several
hundred ducks near Moscow;
if the tests
return positive it will be a major spread of the virus across the Ural
Mountains, into European Russia.
A small village
in southern Macedonia also suspects the strain.
Plans are
already made to kill 10,000 birds to contain the outbreak.
Romania
confirmed that there has been another outbreak in the Danube Delta area.
The strain was
confirmed there last weekend, whereupon 4,500 birds were destroyed.
H5N1 is the
strain scientists fear could be transmitted from human to human, causing a
flu pandemic.
So far 50
people have died of it, all having worked closely with birds.
It is not easy
to pass the disease from bird to human. |
