Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Bird flu appears in Czech Republic

25 February 2009

Hodonin, South Moravia, Feb 24 (CTK) - Czech vets on Tuesday discovered a virus of bird flu when checking the breeding of waterfowl in the Rybarstvi Hodonin fishing company, local vet authority head Jaroslav Salava told CTK.

It was discovered in nine out of the 60 randomly checked geese near the Pisecensky pond. However, it is not the risky type H5N1, but the much less dangerous H7 stem, Salava said.

Nevertheless, vets will still order the putting down of all the roughly 3000 geese and 350 ducks, Salava said.

An area with the 1-km radius was created around the focus of the epidemic, Salava said, adding that special veterinary measures for the disinfection of the farms and movement of people and poultryž would be in effect there.

Salava said the staff and locals were not exposed to any serious danger in the area.

"The found H7 stem is among the low pathogenic stems of bird flu with a minimum risk. The transfer of the infection to humans can be discounted," Renata Vaverkova from the regional sanitation authority told CTK.

The low pathogenic stem of bird flu was recently discovered also in Germany, France, Belgium and Italy.

There are about 90 ponds with the acreage of 520 hectares in the Hodonin region.

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