Switzerland reports first bird flu outbreak

The veterinary office said a Zurich laboratory would determine by the end of the week whether the dead merganser, a large diving duck, was carrying H5N1. If confirmed, it would be the first case of the virus in Switzerland. Samples were also being sent for confirmation to a European Union reference laboratory in Weybridge, England.

Swiss authorities said they were erecting a protective zone around the area where the merganser was found on the shore of lake Geneva.

Meanwhile, China published plans to cope with sudden medical emergencies as two people diagnosed with bird flu remained in critical condition on Sunday.

China warned of the threat of a massive avian flu outbreak among birds in the country on Saturday as it reported two new human cases — the girl in eastern Zhejiang province and a woman farmer in neighboring Anhui province, Xinhua news agency said.

The woman farmer, who was diagnosed on Feb. 11 with symptoms of fever and pneumonia, had come into contact with sick and dead poultry, Xinhua said, adding she was in critical condition.

The girl, from Anji County, had visited relatives who kept poultry, Xinhua said.

“During her visits, chickens raised at her relatives’ homes got sick and some died,” Xinhua said.

A local health official said on Sunday the girl’s condition had not changed.

China’s State Council had published an emergency plan against “sudden public health accidents”, handling “major infectious diseases, unidentified group diseases, major food or occupational poisonings that may render grave health harm to the public”, Xinhua said Sunday.

Agriculture Minister Du Qinglin said China culled 23 million fowl in 2005 as it sought to halt the spread of the disease. Of those, 163,000 were found to have the H5N1 strain of bird flu, Xinhua cited the minister as saying.

“In view of the current situation, the possibility of a massive bird flu outbreak could not be ruled out,” Du said, repeating a similar warning issued earlier this week when he said a big outbreak could occur in the spring.

Malaysia clears another five

Five people hospitalized in Malaysia’s main city after showing flu-like symptoms have tested negative for the H5N1 strain of bird flu virus, the health minister said Sunday.

The five — from four villages outside Kuala Lumpur where 40 chickens died from bird flu recently — were isolated in a Kuala Lumpur hospital ward late Friday.

“Test results on the five were negative,” Health Minister Chua Soi Lek was quoted as saying by the national news agency, Bernama.

Ten others earlier quarantined in the hospital also tested negative and were discharged.

Around 90,000 people checked in India

Indian officials battling a bird flu outbreak culled hundreds of thousands of chickens and checked around 90,000 people for symptoms in Gujarat state as authorities ordered tests on dead birds at the other end of the country.

“More than 88,900 persons have been surveyed by the team. Of these 10 human cases have been kept under observation in isolation wards at the referral hospital,” said an official in the western state of Gujarat who declined to be named.

Meanwhile, the government of the northeastern state of Assam sounded a health alert after some 1,000 chickens died over the weekend, ordering tests on the dead birds.

“All preventive measures are being adopted in view of the bird flu scare prevailing across the country,” the magistrate of Tinsukia district, Sanjay Kumar Lohia, told AFP.

Romania detects new cases

Romania detected new suspected cases of bird flu in domestic fowl in a village in the south-east, but more tests were needed to see if it was the deadly H5N1 strain, authorities said Sunday. Avian flu has been detected in 34 villages across the country and in a small Black Sea resort since the virus was first found in the Danube Delta in October. Romania has not reported any cases in humans.

“Veterinarians detected suspected bird flu in the Topalu village in Constanta county,” the agriculture ministry said in a statement. Topalu is around 60 km (40 miles) north-east of the small Black Sea resort of Navodari, where bird flu was confirmed last Sunday.

Germany confirms three more cases

Three more wild birds in northeastern Germany have tested positive for the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus, authorities said Sunday, bringing to 117 the total number of infected birds found in the region.

On Sunday, the state government of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania said the H5N1 strain had been confirmed in two more swans and a Canada goose on the mainland.

The virus also has been found in wild birds in other parts of Germany. On Saturday, authorities in the eastern state of Brandenburg said two cases were found around the town of Schwedt, near the Polish border.

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