China Has New Bird-Flu Outbreak

by ANDREW BATSON,
The Wall Street Journal

Beijing, 20 Oct 2005 - China said it had confirmed a fresh outbreak of avian influenza in birds in the northern province of Inner Mongolia, bringing the number of China's known occurrences of the disease to five this year, while in Russia, officials said preliminary tests found the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu in samples from a region south of Moscow.

In China, tests confirmed that the outbreak at a bird farm in the village of Tengjiaying, near the province's capital of Hohhot and about 670 kilometers northwest of Beijing, was the H5N1 strain, state-run news media reported. The outbreak has been controlled and hasn't spread to new locations, the reports said.

Chen Xiaolong, an official with the avian-flu-prevention office in Hohhot, said the office received a report last Thursday of some unusual bird deaths at the farm in Tengjiaying. Officials visited the farm that day, slaughtered all other poultry in the village and placed the farm and village under quarantine, Mr. Chen said.

China earlier this year reported outbreaks of H5N1 in Qinghai, Xinjiang and Tibet, and in September the government said it had prepared plans to cope with a possible outbreak of avian flu among humans. The World Health Organization has recently expressed concern that China isn't sharing samples of bird-flu virus it has collected, setting back efforts to study the virus for signs of such dangerous changes that might signal the advent of human-to-human transmission. The World Organization for Animal Health confirmed that China had notified it of the latest outbreak.

The H5N1 strain of avian influenza has killed about 60 people in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia since late 2003. While the vast majority of those cases are thought to have been caused by direct contact with infected poultry, scientists have been warning that the virus could mutate into a form that can easily be transmitted from person to person.

In Moscow yesterday, the Agriculture Ministry said preliminary tests detected the H5N1 strain in samples taken from a region south of Moscow where hundreds of birds died suddenly. If confirmed, it would be the first time the H5N1 strain has appeared in European Russia, west of the Ural Mountains. The virulent bird-flu strain has been confirmed in birds in Turkey and Romania, and a European Union official in Brussels said yesterday that bird flu was suspected in Macedonia.

Officials worry that millions of birds returning along migratory "flyways" to Northern Europe next spring could pose the greatest risk of avian flu spreading from regions like Romania and Turkey. The virus has been spreading northwest since July, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Meanwhile, Hungary's health minister said the country has developed a vaccine that could protect both humans and animals from the H5N1 virus, according to preliminary results. Testing of an H5N1 vaccine is under way in other countries, including the U.K. and the U.S.

Croatia's Says Tests Show No Bird Flu

Croatia's Agriculture Ministry said Wednesday that tests on more than 50 dead birds across the country have failed to detect bird flu.

Laboratory checks on wild and domestic birds of different species during the last two weeks showed no indication of the deadly virus, the government report said.

Croatia has been on high alert for the disease after cases were confirmed in Romania and Turkey. Earlier this week, the EU urged Croatia to step up testing as the 25-member bloc tries to manage a regional response to limit the spread of the virus.


Croatian authorities, who have imposed a stringent monitoring regime, were to continue inspections this week at the Unesco-protected Kopacki Rit swamp in eastern Croatia. Teams will also inspect marshlands surrounding the Neretva River in the south and several fishing ponds around the country.

The news has worried Croatians, who have started turning dead birds over to vets and other government authorities. The Ministry of Agriculture has warned persons in frequent contact with birds, like hunters and ornithologists, to watch their hygiene closely, particularly when washing hands, clothes and equipment.

Suspected Cases Emerge in Central Russia

Hundreds of birds have died suddenly in a region south of Moscow, Russian media reported Wednesday, raising fears of a new outbreak of bird flu in Russia.

If confirmed, the discovery in the Tula region would mark the first time that the deadly virus has appeared in European Russia, west of the Ural Mountains.

At least 247 chickens, geese and ducks died between Friday and Monday on a farm in the village of Yandovka due to a severe viral infection, Vremya Novostei newspaper reported.

NTV television said 270 birds had died, and said the village had been put under quarantine.

State-run television reported that local officials had determined that bird flu had caused the death. The ITAR-Tass news agency reported that the council had not yet confirmed the cause and quoted chief regional sanitary doctor, Lidiya Shishkina, as saying results from blood tests would be available Friday.

An Agriculture Ministry spokesman, however, said federal officials had no information as to the cause of the deaths.

ITAR-Tass also said more than 200,000 people in the region, some 125 miles (200 kilometers) south of Moscow, had received flu vaccinations as a preventative measures.

"There is no point in dramatizing the situation," Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev said Wednesday.

Earlier this month, Mr. Gordeyev said the situation with bird flu, which swept parts of Siberia during the summer, had stabilized. The disease had been registered in six regions of Siberia and the Urals region, but it had not yet been seen in European Russia.


--Cui Rong and Kersten Zhang in Beijing and Nicholas Zamiska in Hong Kong, and the Associated Press, contributed to this article.

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