Kuwait finds two bird flu cases in chickens
Source: Reuters
KUWAIT, March 3 (Reuters) - Kuwait said on Saturday it had found two new cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in chickens, raising to 48 the total number of infected birds in the Gulf Arab country this year. "The new cases were traced to the bird market in the al-Rai area," Health Ministry official Ahmed al-Shatti told Reuters. He said 121 handlers and their families had tested negative for the disease while thousands of birds have been culled in a campaign by the government to prevent the disease's spread that had led to a ban on live bird imports. The bird market and Kuwait's zoo are shut while poultry shops in residential areas are being closed for three months. Kuwait confirmed 39 cases of bird flu last month but said 20 of them were found in falcons at the zoo and a farm in the south of the country. The rest did not belong to poultry farms but were domestic birds caged in private yards. It last reported a case of bird flu in a flamingo in 2005. Avian flu has killed 167 people worldwide since 2003, according to the U.N. World Health Organisation. At least 200 million birds have died or been slaughtered.
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