Israel culls poultry to curb H5N1 bird flu

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel poisoned hundreds of thousands
of turkeys and chickens as it sought to contain an outbreak of
the dangerous H5N1 bird flu on Monday.

Teams wearing masks and plastic gloves had culled by Monday
more than half of the 800,000 birds slated to be killed as
officials sought to ease public concern the bird flu outbreak
was spreading.

“We are talking about infections in six flocks in four
locations when there are thousands of flocks in Israel in a
vast number of locations,” Shimon Pokomonsky, a senior
veterinarian at the Agriculture Ministry, told reporters.

A truckload of chickens at a processing plant was also
being destroyed as a cautionary step even thought tests showed
the birds were not infected, he added.

An agriculture ministry spokesman said farmers would
probably receive 100 shekels (about $21) and 12 shekels per
chicken ($2.6).

Culling began on Saturday but it will take several more
days for all the poultry within a 3-km (2 mile) radius of the
infected coops to be put down.

The birds were being given poisoned water and their
carcasses were being buried in large pits. Four million doses
of an H5N1 vaccine for chickens were expected to arrive from
the Netherlands on Tuesday, the ministry said.

The Agriculture Ministry said on Sunday in a posting on its
Web site that tests confirmed that H5N1, a strain that has
spread across Europe, Africa and parts of Asia and killed at
least 98 people worldwide since 2003, had reached Israel.

“The situation is under control,” the ministry said in its
update on the Internet, urging Israelis to continue to eat
“properly cooked” poultry and eggs.

Although hard to catch, people can contract bird flu by
coming into contact with infected birds. Scientists fear the
virus could mutate into a form that could pass easily between
humans, triggering a pandemic in which millions could die.

Four farm workers in Israel feared to have caught the virus
had not been infected, the Health Ministry said.

Neighboring Egypt said on Saturday that a 30-year-old woman
had died of bird flu, the country’s first reported death from
the virus.