.
H5N1 Bird Spreads to Kurgan Region in Russia
Recombinomics Commentary
August 5, 2005
Cases of bird flu have been reported in two districts in the east of Russia's Kurgan region, sources in the local branch of the Federal Veterinary Control Service told Interfax.
"Cases of the disease have been reported in the Petukhovo and Chastoozyorsk districts among both wild and domestic fowl," one of the sources said.
The outbreak affected domestic birds in the village of Butyrino as well as seagulls and wild ducks in a nearby area.
The report above confirms rumors of dead waterfowl in the Kurgan region, generating alerts in Yakaterinburg in the Ural Mountains separating Europe and Asia. The above report places outbreak in the northwest corner of Kurgan, near Tyumen, Omsk, and the major Kazahkstan city of Petropayloysk. The city has Omsk to the east, Tyumen to the north, and Kurgen to the west, further suggesting that the westward migration along the southern border of Russia involves the regions comprising the northern border of Kazahkstan, which include East Kazakhstan, Pavlodar, and North Kazakhstan.
The identification of infected wild and domestic birds has paralleled the suspect human cases in Kazahkstan. The first case is a poultry worker in Golubovka in the Irtysh region, where H5 positive bird deaths were reported to OIE. The area is just south of the Chany Lake region where Russia reported dead birds to the OIE. Media reports indicate the poultry worker has pneumonia, which is an advanced condition of bird flu infections. Also in the area is a family of four who developed symptoms after eating goose meat. To the east in Eastern Kazakhstan are 15 people hospitalized after eating chicken cutlets at a dining hall. This are is due north of Tacheng, Xinjiang, where an OIE report from China described dead geese.
All of the OIE reports cite migratory birds as the cause of the outbreaks in domestic birds. The outbreaks cover almost 1000 miles of the Russian Kazahkstan border.
Butyrino is most western area reporting cases. It is about 200 miles west of Europe and about 800 miles northeast of the Caspian Sea.
Media Resources