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Deadly bird flu expands in Africa, Europe
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-13 20:50
Myanmar reported its first case of the deadly H5N1
strain of bird flu, and there was a high risk poultry in Afghanistan were also
infected, officials said Monday, a day after the virus gained new ground in
Europe and Africa.
A rooster stands on the roof of a house in
Kabul, Afghanistan, as Afghan children play soccer on a hillside above the
city's main cemetery Monday, March 13, 2006. The U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization said five swab samples from backyard poultry farms in Kabul
and the eastern city of Jalalabad tested positive on Monday for the H5
strain of bird flu, and that tests were under way to discern if it is the
deadly H5N1 virus. [AP] |
Lab tests confirmed the outbreak in northern Myanmar after 112 chickens died,
said Laurence Gleeson, a senior official at the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization, citing a report from the Myanmar government.
The Cameroon government announced its first case on Sunday, becoming the
fourth African country to be struck by the virus. The H5N1 bird flu strain was
detected in a duck on a farm close to the northern town of Maroua, near the
border with neighboring Nigeria, the government said in a statement broadcast on
state radio.
New cases were also reported Sunday in Poland and Greece 锟斤拷 two countries
already touched by bird flu 锟斤拷 in the latest signs of the disease's expanding
range.
In Afghanistan, meanwhile, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said
that an H5 subtype of bird flu was found in poultry samples in Kabul and
Jalalabad, and that there was a "high risk" further tests could prove the
samples to be the H5N1 strain.
The deadly bird flu virus has not yet reached Afghanistan, but the FAO warned
last month that it would and chided the government and donor nations for being
slow to prevent it.
Dr. Azizullah Esmoni, of the Afghan Agriculture Ministry, said he expected
further results within 48 hours to determine whether the H5N1 virus had struck
the Afghan poultry.
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