Russia reports new outbreak of bird flu

A new bird flu outbreak has been recorded in a Siberian region that was hit by the disease last summer, officials said today.

About 90 chicken and ducks have died in the village of Rotovka in the Omsk region, and tests showed the birds had the same H5N1 strain of avian flu that has devastated flocks in Asia since 2003 and hit areas in Russia’s Siberia and the Urals last summer, said Boris Mishkin, the head of the regional branch of Russia’s veterinary service.

Local authorities have imposed a quarantine in the village located 1,550 miles east of Moscow and were considering whether to kill all of 3,300 birds there, Mishkin said.

Bird flu has decimated flocks in several regions in Siberia and the Urals during the summer, and last week it spread into European Russia, hitting the village of Yandovka, about 200 miles south of Moscow. Authorities have culled all birds in the village.

No people have been infected by bird flu in Russia.