28.12.2005

Turkey

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 avian influenza 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.
Samples were sent to the World Health Organization and the European Union for more tests.
Igdir is a remote, rural area where farming and animal husbandry are main means of livelihood. But poultry are mostly raised by people for their own consumption.
An outbreak of avian influenza in October in more densely populated northwest Turkey triggered the culling of more than 10,000 birds. That outbreak was identified as the deadly H5N1 strain (Reuters).