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Turkey culls poultry to stem spread of bird flu-TV

Posted on: Sunday, 9 October 2005, 10:28 CDT

By Gareth Jones

ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey culled about 1,500 chickens and turkeys overnight to prevent the spread of avian flu after reporting its first outbreak of the disease on a farm near the Aegean Sea, NTV private television said on Sunday.

The authorities have also imposed a 3 km (2 miles) quarantine zone around the affected farm, where nearly 2,000 turkeys died of the globally feared disease on Tuesday and Wednesday, the station said.

"At the moment this is not a situation which should cause (ordinary citizens) any worry. At the moment, there is no question of having household pets put down," the state Anatolian news agency quoted local official Resul Celik as saying.

"What matters for us is the farm where the outbreak occurred and the 3 km quarantine area," he said.

Farm and Health Ministry officials were not immediately available to comment on the reports and it was not clear why the reports of the outbreak only surfaced on Saturday evening.

"Last night, some 1,500 birds were slaughtered," NTV said. The authorities have drawn up a national action plan, it said, but gave no details.

Anatolian said veterinary teams had killed 600 turkeys overnight in one farm alone in the affected area of northwestern Turkey as a precautionary measure. The birds were buried in lime-drenched pits, it said.

The culling will resume on Sunday evening, the agency said.

Veterinary experts are carrying out tests to determine what strain of bird flu has struck in Turkey.

The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed millions of birds across Asia and infected 116 people, killing more than 60 of them. Scientists fear the virus, currently known to pass to humans from birds, could mutate and be passed among humans.

The Hurriyet newspaper said up to 16,000 animals would be slaughtered but could be sold if tests certified that they had not been infected with the disease.

The affected district of Kiziksa will remain under quarantine for 21 days, newspapers said. Stray dogs in the area are being killed as a precaution, they said.

MIGRATORY BIRDS

Officials say the infected turkeys in Kiziksa probably contracted the disease from migratory birds heading for a nearby natural park called Bird Paradise. The migratory birds come from Russia's Ural mountains, they said.

Russia has been badly hit by avian flu, which recently killed 100,000 birds in one large industrial farm in the Southern Urals, though the outbreak now appears to be petering out with the departure of migratory birds ahead of winter.

Romania reported its first case of avian flu on Friday but was still trying to establish whether the virus found in domestic birds in its Danube delta was harmful to humans.

Agriculture Minister George Flutur told state radio on Sunday that scientists had so far been unable to isolate the virus in the suspect birds, indicating it was less likely to be a virulent strain.

The European Commission said on Sunday it was following developments in Romania and Turkey, and was in close contact with the EU hopefuls and member states.

"We're looking into it to establish the facts ... the Turkish and Romanian case are two different ones," a spokesman for the EU Commission said.

Hurriyet quoted Mehmet Eksen, owner of the stricken Turkish farm, as saying he now feared for his own health.

"I cried when I witnessed the death of my turkeys. I cannot forget those moments ... But now I think of myself and what will happen to my health. I cannot go near my wife and children," the paper quoted Eksen as saying.

The World Health Organization warned last month that bird flu was moving toward a form that could be passed between humans and the world had no time to waste to prevent a pandemic.

(additional reporting by Radu Marinas in Bucharest and Bart Crols in Brussels)

Source: REUTERS

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