Major Poultry Cull in Nepal to Combat Bird Flu

To combat a bird flu outbreak on the outskirts of Kathmandu, health workers in Nepal will cull over half a million chickens

To combat a bird flu outbreak on the outskirts of Kathmandu, health workers in Nepal will cull over half a million chickens.

The orders come after tens of thousands of birds have already been killed in what government officials describe as one of the Himalayan nation's worst outbreaks of avian flu.

Bird Flu Claims Its 14th Human Victim in Egypt
According to confirmation received from The Ministry of Health in Egypt, a 15-year-old girl has succumbed to bird flu infection on 10th of April.

Some 62 cases of bird flu have been recorded at 250 poultry farms in three districts in the past few weeks, officials said.

Officials at Directorate of Animal Health said the government ordered the cull to be stepped up in the wake of a failure to control the H5N1 virus after imposing a week-long ban on the sales of poultry products.

"We could not control it (the outbreak) because the supply of poultry products continued despite the ban," the directorate's spokesman, Narayan Ghimire, told AFP.

Bird Flu reported in Dutch Poultry Farm
The ministry of economic affairs reported that bird flu has been detected in a poultry farm with 9,000 hens in the Dutch town of Tzum.

"Now, the poultry farmers have joined us in our battle. We are sure we will control it," he said.

Nepal's first outbreak of bird flu was in January 2009.

WHO Officials Investigating Eight Suspected Bird Flu Cases
World Health Organization officials said yesterday that they were investigating eight suspected bird flu cases in humans in Sumatra.

H5N1, a common strain of bird flu, has killed 377 people globally between 2003 until July 5 this year, according to the World Health Organisation.

No human deaths from bird flu have been reported in Nepal.

Source-AFP