Bird flu may move westwards across Russia

MOSCOW - Crisis teams have been set up in Germany and the Netherlands to track the progress of a highly infectious form of bird flu which appears to be moving westwards across Russia.

The Russian epidemic was first detected in a Siberian region in July but has steadily spread due to contact between migrating birds and farmed poultry.

Two types of wild duck are being blamed by Russian experts who say the birds brought the disease with them from Asia where it has mutated to affect humans, killing at least 60 people.

In Russia some 13,000 birds have died of the disease and 113,000 have been preventively culled. However there have so far been no reported cases of human infection.

Thirty-six Russian settlements have, however, confirmed cases of the bird disease. Several regions have brought forward the start of the hunting season, hoping that possibly infected wild birds will be shot out of the air.

Quarantines have been imposed in many regions and the import of Russian poultry into the EU banned.

Scientists in Europe are looking on nervously as the disease appears to have reached the Urals Mountains, the natural dividing point between European and Asian Russia some 750 miles east of Moscow.

However there appeared to be signs yesterday that the disease was not spreading as fast as was feared.

Several suspected outbreaks were claimed not to be bird flu after all. Instead, it was claimed, the birds had been poisoned by the wrong kind of feed or had been killed by worms.

- THE INDEPENDENT