Originally published February 2 2006
Turkey reports outbreak of bird flu near its eastern border
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
The Agriculture Ministry of Turkey has announced a bird flu outbreak among chickens on its eastern border with Armenia, and the country has culled birds and taken measure to contain the virus.
Turkey has reported an outbreak of avian influenza in chickens, less than a month after declaring its territory free of the virus, and said it had culled 359 birds as a precautionary measure.
In a statement released late on Tuesday, the Agriculture Ministry said it had 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.
The strain has been identified 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.
It said it had sent samples to the World Health Organization and the European Union for more tests.
"As the necessary quarantine measures were undertaken before the identification (of bird flu), there is no cause for concern for human health, or for our country's meat and egg trade," the ministry said.
Igdir is a remote, rural area where farming and animal husbandry are main means of livelihood.
An outbreak of bird flu in October in more densely populated northwest Turkey triggered the culling of more than 10,000 birds.
Most of Europe imposed a ban on imports of Turkish live birds which was subsequently eased.
The Agriculture Ministry announced on December 9 that it had successfully eliminated bird flu in western Turkey.
But experts say Turkey will remain vulnerable to further outbreaks because it lies on the flight path of migratory birds, which are widely thought to help spread the virus.
The ministry said it believed migratory birds may have brought the virus to Igdir from the Caucasus region.
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