Home

  • Home
    • » e-Newsletters

Turkey reports bird flu outbreak near Armenia border

Infection Control Monitor, January 4, 2006

Less than a month after declaring its territory free of avian influenza, Turkey has reported an outbreak in chickens, and has culled 359 birds as a precautionary measure, Reuters reports.

The Agriculture Ministry has imposed quarantine in the affected area of Igdir, near Turkey's far eastern border with Armenia, after detecting a strain of the bird flu virus in dead chickens.

Health officials have identified the strain as the H5 type, but authorities are conducting further tests to establish whether it is the deadly H5N1 strain that has killed some 70 people in Asia since 2003 and forced the slaughter of millions of birds. Experts say Turkey will remain vulnerable to further outbreaks because it lies on the flight path of migratory birds, which are thought to help spread the virus.

Officials have sent samples to the World Health Organization and the European Union for further tests.

Most Popular