Lab confirms H5N1 in Croatia

Dead swans found in a Croatian nature park were infected with the lethal H5N1 bird flu strain, the agriculture ministry said today after receiving test results from a British laboratory.

The laboratory, which tested samples from six swans that already had already tested positive for H5 subtype of bird flu last Friday, Croatia’s flu case, confirmed it was the H5N1 strain, said ministry spokesman Mladen Pavic.

The news was confirmed by the European Commission in Brussels

Following the announcement of the suspected case over the weekend, the European Commission issued a precautionary ban on imports of live poultry, wild birds and feathers from the Balkan country. “That ban remains in force,” said EU spokesman Philip Tod.

Croatia has stopped exporting some poultry.

The six dead swans were found in the nature park of Zdenci last week and experts later found 13 more dead swans that were believed to have belonged to the same flock in a nearby fish pond.

Two of those 13 also tested positive for the H5 subtype, but their samples have yet to be examined to determine whether it was the H5N1 strain.

Croatia disinfected and quarantined the region around the sites and all domestic poultry there was slaughtered and incinerated.

The H5N1 strain had previously been confirmed in birds in Romania, Turkey and Russia as it moves west. It has decimated poultry flocks in Asia in the past two years and killed more than 60 people.

Croatian experts yesterday shot down a sick swan they suspected of having bird flu. It carried a ring with “Budapest, Hungary” inscribed on it. Pavic said Hungarian officials confirmed the swan was ringed on Hungary’s Lake Balaton on September 9.

Hungary has not recorded a bird flu case yet.

Croatia is a major migratory route for birds, and about 1,500 migratory swans arrived in eastern Croatia a few days ago.

International experts are closely watching for H5N1 for fear it could mutate into a form easily transmitted between people and spark a human flu pandemic.