Ukraine finds H5N1 bird flu in Crimea

[Dutchy]

Ukraine finds H5N1 bird flu in Crimea

18 Jan 2008

(Adds quotes, details)

KIEV, Jan 18 (Reuters) - A new outbreak of the strain of bird flu that is deadly to humans has struck Ukraine after being kept under control for two years, veterinarians said on Friday.

Ukraine's Veterinary Inspectorate said the outbreak was detected this week in the village of Rovnoye in the Crimean peninsula, the same region hit in late 2005.

A total of 153 birds died suddenly at a private firm where more than 25,000 poultry were kept.

"Yesterday, tests were concluded and DNA of the H5N1 virus was found," a veterinary inspectorate spokesman, Anatoly Osadchi, told Reuters.

"The village has been sealed off, guards have been posted at entry points and a quarantine is in place. All the birds are being incinerated."

The inspectorate said the first six deaths were noted on Tuesday, followed by dozens more over the next two days.

The first outbreak of bird flu was detected in Ukraine in late 2005, in northern Crimea -- a major stopping point on migratory bird routes. About 30 villages were affected at that time and tens of thousands of birds were destroyed.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L18540965.htm

[Dutchy]

Bird-flu die-off at Ukraine poultry farm

Posted : Fri, 18 Jan 2008

Author : DPA

Kiev - Dozens of chickens at a Ukrainian poultry farm have died from the H5N1 bird-flu virus, the Interfax news agency reported Friday. Inspectors found 153 birds dead from the disease at the Lobzenko poultry factory in a central region of the Black Sea peninsula Crimea.

A quarantine was in effect around the plant and the nearby Rivne village. The bird-flu outbreak was the first reported in Ukraine in 2008.

Health workers were testing birds at the Lobzenko factory, and mandatory destruction of thousands of other chickens potentially exposed to the disease was likely, according to the report.

The processing plant currently contains some 25,000 birds, an official from Ukraine's Ministry of Emergency Situations said.

The last incident of bird flu in Ukraine was registered in July 2006, when health inspectors detected the disease in domestic poultry in the eastern Sumy region, resulting in the destruction of more than 12,000 chickens, ducks and geese.

The outbreak brought economic hardship on thousands of lower- income Sumy region rural residents dependant on household fowl for eggs and meat.

Bird flu in 2006 also was found in pelicans living in the marshy Sivash wetland of the Crimean peninsula, but that outbreak did not make the jump to domestic birds, the Health Ministry said at the time.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/s...ltry-farm.html

[HenryN]

Updated map

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UT...,24.433594&z=5

[AlaskaDenise]

Just for comparison, this is a map of the cases by November 9th, 2006:



By November 11, there were 2 more dots - along the Southern coast.

.

[HenryN]

Ukraine hit by new bird flu outbreak
01.18.08, 6:41 AM ET

KIEV (Thomson Financial) - The Ukrainian government has confirmed a new outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in poultry in the Crimean peninsula.
The virus was found in dead chickens from a battery farm in the village of Rivne, a spokesman for the emergency situations ministry, Volodymyr Ivanov, told AFP.
More than 150 birds at the farm had died from bird flu earlier in the week, the ministry said, with Ivanov adding that the village had been cordoned off.
Crimea's first outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which is deadly if contracted by humans, occurred in December 2005.
On that occasion the virus was eliminated after the authorities swept through farmsteads on the peninsula destroying tens of thousands of domestic birds kept for food by local residents.
H5N1 has claimed more than 200 human lives around the world, mostly in Asia. In Ukraine there have been no human casualties,
Scientists worry that the virus could mutate into a form directly transmissible between humans and cause a devastating pandemic.
newsdesk@afxnews.com

http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited...fx4547498.html

[HenryN]

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01...N1_Crimea.html

[HenryN]

Ukraine Reports New H5N1 Bird Flu Outbreak in Crimean Poultry

By Daryna Krasnolutska
Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Ukraine, which borders the European Union to the east, recorded its first outbreak of bird flu in poultry in 16 months, the Ministry for Emergency Situations said.
The H5N1 strain of avian influenza killed 153 chickens and hens on a farm in the Crimea region in an outbreak that began Jan. 15, the ministry said today in a statement on its Web site. The diagnosis is based on an analysis of samples by state veterinary officials, the ministry said.
The former Soviet republic of 46 million people borders EU members Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. Quarantine measures were implemented today in Rivne, a Crimean village on the Black Sea.
Ukraine's previous avian flu outbreak in poultry was in September 2006. No human H5N1 infections have been reported in Ukraine.
To contact the reporter on this story: Daryna Krasnolutska in Kiev at dkrasnolutsk@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 18, 2008 04:01 EST

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...fer=healthcare

[hawkeye]

from China:

Bird flu breaks out in southern Ukraine
www.chinaview.cn 2008-01-18 22:07:49

KIEV, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- A new outbreak of bird flu has struck southern Ukraine this week, the country's Emergency Situations Ministry said in a statement Friday.

The outbreak was detected in the village of Rifne on the Crimean peninsula, the same region that was struck in late 2005. A total of 153 birds died suddenly during Jan. 15-17 at a private farm where more than 25,000 poultry birds were kept, the statement said.

DNA of the H5N1 virus was found by tests conducted late Thursday, the ministry said.

"The village has been sealed off, and guards have been posted at entry points and a quarantine is in place. All the birds are being incinerated," the ministry said.

[HenryN]

Ukraine to cull 25,000 birds in bird flu outbreak
		19:57 | 18/ 01/ 2008

SIMFEROPOL, January 18 (RIA Novosti) - All 25,000 birds at a Ukrainian poultry farm in north Crimea are to be slaughtered following the outbreak of bird flu, a spokesman for the local Emergency Situations Ministry said on Friday.
Over 200 chickens died on Tuesday at the farm, and a medical examination later confirmed the presence of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
A three-kilometer (1.8 mile) protection zone has been established around the farm. The residents of nearby villages are undergoing medical checks, the spokesman said, adding that authorities had imposed quarantine restrictions in the affected areas.
Although no cases of human-to-human transmission of H5N1 have been reported, scientists fear the virus could mutate into a strain that could pass easily between people, causing a global pandemic. Over 200 deaths have been registered worldwide by the World Health Organization since 2003.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20080118/97302438.html

[AlaskaDenise]

Originally Posted by niman

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01...N1_Crimea.html

Commentary

H5N1 Confirmed on Crimea Peninsula

Recombinomics Commentary 12:50
January 18, 2008

Dozens of chickens at a Ukrainian poultry farm have died from the H5N1 bird-flu virus, the Interfax news agency reported Friday. Inspectors found 153 birds dead from the disease at the Lobzenko poultry factory in a central region of the Black Sea peninsula Crimea.

The above comments describe another outbreak of H5N1 in Europe (see satellite map). The Crimea peninsula is frequented by migratory birds, but like Romania, the infection of domestic poultry was made in the absence of a reported recent outbreak in wild birds. This discovery sequence mimics the result in Romania, where H5N1 was detected in domestic poultry in the Danube Delta. In Krasnodar, H5N1 was detected in a whooper swan as well as domestic poultry. Sequences from the fall, 2007 outbreaks in Romania and Krasnodar have been released. The cat, chicken, and duck sequences from Romania are identical and are the Uva Lake strain. Similarly, the whooper swan and chicken HA sequences from Krasnodar match each other, and are also the Uva Lake strain, but more closely related to the sequences from Germany collected in the summer of 2007.

The timing and location of the Ukraine outbreak indicates it is also due to the Uva Lake strain, and relaxed surveillance of wild birds has produced yet another example of H5N1 infections in domestic poultry in the absence of detection of H5N1 in wild birds.

.

[Dutchy]

OIE-report:

http://www.oie.int/wahid-prod/public...&reportid=6698


snips:

Outbreak 1 Rivne, Krasnogvardeisk, CRIMEAN


Affected animals

Species Birds

Susceptible 25 000

Cases 173

Deaths 173

Destroyed 15000


laying hens in two poultry houses. 180-day-old chickens were kept in the first poultry house and 390-day-old chickens in the second one. The youngest population showed first clinical signs of disease. Clinical signs were detected during epidemiological examination as follows: depression, disheveled feathers, oedema and cyanosis of head.

The period from the first clinical signs till death lasts from 2 to 8 hours. During post-mortem examination, the following observations were made: enlarged liver, enlarged gall bladder and kidneys, catarrhal inflammation of duodenum, pinpoint haemorrhages into submucous membrane of ferriferous stomach.


The owner notified the disease to the Veterinary Services for the first time on 16 January 2008. The same day, a commission consisting of experts of the Veterinary Administration of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and Republican Laboratory specialists was constituted .

As of 16h p.m. 19 January 2008 the destruction of poultry was completed.
No other notifications on illness or loss of poultry in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea have been registered up to date.

203 groups for control of poultry health status were organized. 201, 200 birds in 507 settlements of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea were examined. 12 poultry establishments were also examined.

State Committee for Veterinary Medicine of Ukraine assigned to the Veterinary Administration in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea disinfection means, individual safety kits for conduction of disease eradication.