- Title: ISRAEL: Israeli workers cull chickens after outbreak of bird flu
- Date: 4th January 2008
- Summary: MAN AND CHILDREN WATCHING AS WORKERS BAG LIVE CHICKENS
- Embargoed: 19th January 2008 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Israel
- Country: Israel
- Topics: Health
- Reuters ID: LVADUS1CZ54BZCC4PMAU9F71H3SP
- Story Text: Local municipal workers begin to cull the chicken population near an outbreak of the H5N1 avian flu in Israel. At a large poultry farm near the outbreak, a farmer says all her chickens are set to be culled.
Israeli officials said on Thursday (January 3) the deadly bird flu strain, H5N1, has been found in dead chickens from a kindergarten petting zoo.
"The H5N1 bird flu strain has been found in the fowl," the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement, referring to 18 dead chickens found in the kindergarten.
The H5N1 type could be transmitted from fowl to humans.
Government veterinarians have been ordered to cull all birds in commercial farms and private courtyards within a 3-km radius (1.9-mile) of the kindergarten. Bird pets, however, will be spared, the statement said.
Parents of children at the kindergarten, in the northern town of Binyamina, were urged to watch out for signs of high fever, the most common symptom associated with the virus.
About a dozen birds in the kindergarten were culled.
Investigators were checking for any indication of an outbreak at poultry farms within a 10-km (six-mile) radius of Binyamina, the Agriculture Ministry said.
By Thursday evening local municipal workers began to cull chickens at small farms near the outbreak.
At a larger family-run poultry farm, Nava Mucharsky said she was informed authorities from Israel's Agriculture ministry would come on Friday (January 4) to kill all her chickens.
"Tomorrow morning they're going to come and kill all the chickens we have, and it's our only thing that we work on. We don't have anything else, and it's very hard for us. And we don't know what to do, if we'll have money for this, if they will give us anything in return for all this work we've done. It's not good for the family," Mucharsky said.
Israel culled around 1.2 million chickens and turkeys in March 2006 after chickens in several communal farms were found to have been infected with H5N1.
Human deaths from bird flu total more than 210 worldwide since 2003 and have been reported in several Middle Eastern countries. Migratory birds are seen as the main culprits in spreading bird flu from Asia to the Middle East and Europe. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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