Russia kills birds to halt advance of flu virus

By Aussiegirl

Looks like the bird flu is advancing into heavily populated areas. The danger involved with the bird flu would be if it could be communicated not only from birds to humans, but if the virus mutates and human to human transmission becomes a possibility the world faces a major pandemic of deadly flu similar to the 1918 outbreak.

The Bankok Post has the story:

Russia cordoned off roads and slaughtered hundreds of birds yesterday to contain the advance of a bird flu epidemic towards western Europe.

The outbreak, previously confined to five remote areas of Siberia, has now struck a major industrial region _ Chelyabinsk in the Ural mountains, which separate Asia from Europe.

"All ill and infected birds are being slaughtered there,'' the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement.

It was unclear whether the virus found in Chelyabinsk was the deadly H5N1 strain that has killed more than 50 people in Asia since 2003 and has hit Russia's Siberia as well as neighbouring Kazakhstan and Mongolia since mid-July.