More than 300 birds in the village of Suzdalka, near Novosibirsk have died of a virus thought to be bird flu. If confirmed, this will be Russia’s first outbreak of bird flu for more than 15 years. Fortunately no humans appear to have contracted the virus, a variant of which (H5N1)has killed more than 50 people in South Asia.
RIA Novosti has this quote from Russia’s Chief Medical Officer, Gennady Onishchenko:
"We have been carrying out laboratory research and looking for infection among humans." He confirmed that no human cases have been found, "although not much time has passed since the virus appeared.
"We now have to ascertain how the virus entered our territory."
Suzdalka is less than 100 miles from the Kazakh border, so I’d imagine that will be the first line of enquiry.
