ROMANIA/TURKEY: Romania and Turkey are culling thousands of birds to quell an outbreak of bird flu that could be the deadly virus that has killed dozens of people in Asia.
Scientists from Britain are expected in Romania today to help local scientists confirm whether the virus is the feared H5N1, which can be transmitted to humans and often proves fatal.
Britain has also been in touch via the European Commission with the authorities in Ankara, after Turkey reported its first outbreak of the disease on a farm near the Aegean Sea.
Nearly 2,000 birds died on the farm last week, prompting the government to impose a 3km quarantine area around the site and to start culling thousands more local birds, the same kind of measures that Romania is taking in its Danube Delta region.
There, in Europe's largest wetland, thousands of people are being vaccinated against ordinary flu to help protect them against any virus that may cross over from birds.
Experts believe infected birds from Russia, which rest and feed in the delta as they migrate south for the winter, brought the avian flu virus with them from Siberia and the Ural mountains.
Romanian agriculture minister Gheorghe Flutur said his scientists had not managed to identify the virus that killed several birds in the delta, suggesting it was less likely to be a virulent strain, but tests would continue for several days.
"So far, we have been unable to isolate the virus, which means that the longer the process takes, the less chance there is of it being a powerful virus," he said.
No cases of human flu have been diagnosed in seven delta villages where birds are believed to have died of avian flu.
Poland has banned imports of poultry from Romania and Turkey, and Bulgaria is on high alert for any outbreak.
