Turkey's second case of bird flu discovered
Güncelleme Tarihi:
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Aralık 28, 2005 12:01
A second case of bird flu in Turkey has been discovered in the eastern province of Igdir, close to the Armenian border. Immediate steps were taken to seal off the area in question, said officials on Tuesday. The birds were tested for the H5 type virus of avian flu and results returned were positive, however it has not yet been made clear whether it is the same strain which has killed 70 people in Asia since 2003, said a spokesman from the Ministry of Agriculture Faruk Demirel.
Haberin Devamı
"We have sent samples to a laboratory in Britain and expect the results in a period of between a week and 10 days," he told AFP.
Around 350 birds have been slaughtered.
Turkey announced on December 9 that all cases of the bird flu had been eradicated in the northwest of the country by testing thousands of samples and slaughtering at least 10,000 birds.
Demirel said that the area around the new case had been quarantined and sales of poultry had been banned. He went on to say that Turkey was well-prepared for such a scare: "Since the required quarantine measures were imposed even before the diagnosis, there no worrying situation with respect to public health and for producers of poultry and eggs in the country."