'No new cases' of bird flu in Romania

Romania’s agriculture minister said today that no new cases of bird flu were discovered in tests on 400 more birds from the country’s Danube Delta region.

Authorities were waiting, however, for results from a British laboratory, expected tonight, on other samples from a swan and a chicken found dead in the village of Maliuc.

Both birds were positive for bird flu in preliminary tests, but the British lab must confirm those results.

Officials confirmed on Saturday that the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain had been detected in the delta village of Ceamurlia de Jos, in Romania’s east, as well as in Turkey and Russia.

Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur said today that weekend tests conducted on samples from the region were negative for the virus. He said he had asked the US Embassy in Bucharest for a mobile laboratory to more effectively test birds on site.

Scientists fear the H5N1 strain, which is deadly but difficult for humans to contract, could mutate into a form more easily transmitted between people, and lead to a pandemic.

The European Union has banned all poultry imports from Turkey and Romania in an effort to limit the disease’s spread.

Romanian and Turkish authorities also have culled thousands of domestic birds in recent days.

All domestic fowl in Ceamurlia de Jos have been killed and the village has been disinfected three times, Romanian officials said. The area will remain under quarantine for 21 days before it can be declared free of the virus, they said.

“We’ve killed and incinerated all 18,000 birds in Ceamurlia,” said Constantin Lupescu, deputy chairman of the animal health agency.

The killing of about 2,000 domestic birds in Maliuc ended today, and that village was being disinfected.

Authorities have also ordered that all domestic birds be kept inside, to prevent contact with migratory birds.

Prime Minister Calin Popescu Tariceanu called for tightening controls on farms in the affected province of Dobrogea to ensure compliance with that order.

“We need locals to get involved in our efforts to stop the spread of the virus,” he said, adding that authorities would fine people who did not comply. About three-fourths of Romania’s estimated 100 million domestic birds live on small, subsistence farms.

Tariceanu also met with US Chargé d’Affaires Mark Taplin, who promised support for raising public awareness about measures to stop the spread of bird flu.

H5N1, though difficult for humans to catch, has killed more than 60 people in Asia in two years, mostly poultry farmers infected directly by birds.

Stamping out the outbreaks in birds is important, as the further the virus can spread, the more opportunities it has to mutate.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said yesterday the EU would not hesitate to propose “drastic measures” to fight the spread of bird flu if current safeguards prove insufficient.

Meanwhile, Romanian tour operators in the Danube Delta said today they stood to lose £6million over the next three months, as thousands of visitors cancelled planned trips to the marshland area during autumn – the start of the region’s tourist season.

“There are 6,000 beds in organised tourism, and 98 percent of them are unoccupied,” said Cornel Gaina, who runs a luxury tourism complex called Heron on the Saint Gheorghe tributary of the Danube River.

Tourism operators planned to meet tomorrow to discuss any action they could take.

Tourists from Italy, Spain, France, Germany and Britain, as well as from elsewhere in Romania, visit the delta to hunt, fish and birdwatch.