Deadly bird flu strain resurfaces in Germany

BERLIN, June 24 (Reuters) The deadly strain of the bird flu virus has resurfaced in Germany in the bodies of at least three dead birds found in the state of Bavaria, Germany's first confirmed cases this year, officials said today.

The corpses of several more birds found in the southern state are being analysed to see if they also contain the deadliest strain of the H5N1 virus, a city spokeswoman said.

A spokeswoman for Germany's Federal Ministry for Nutrition, Agriculture and Consumer Protection said a total of three birds had tested positive for the worst strain of the H5N1 virus.

Germany quickly passed this information on to the European Commission, which said a regional laboratory in Bavaria and a German national laboratory had both confirmed the presence of the strain in several dead birds.

''Highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 was detected in more than 700 wild birds in the EU in 2006,'' the Commission said in a statement. It added that the infected swans in Bavaria were the European Union's first cases reported in wild birds in 2007.

Other dead birds found in two lakes near Nuremberg have been confirmed to have the H5N1 virus but it remains unclear whether they have the deadliest strain, German officials said.

In addition to the dead swans, the bodies of a wild duck and a wild goose have been confirmed to have some form of the H5N1 virus, the city of Nuremberg said.

The Friedrich Loeffler Institute, the government's top veterinary laboratory, is carrying out tests on the animals to determine which H5N1 strain they carried.

''The city of Nuremberg and the Veterinary Office for the region of Fuerth have established a quarantine zone in the affected areas and will continue observation activity around Nuremberg,'' the city of Nuremberg said in a statement.

Last year, some 13 European Union member states had confirmed cases of bird flu -- Germany, Austria, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Britain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, France and Hungary.

Czech veterinarians started culling several thousand turkeys at a farm last week after tests confirmed the country's first outbreak of a deadly form of bird flu in poultry.

Bird flu has been spreading across southeast Asia, killing two people in Vietnam this month, the first deaths there since 2005.

Globally, the H5N1 virus has killed nearly 200 people out of over 300 known cases, according to the World Health Organisation.

None of the victims were from Europe.

Hundreds of millions of birds have died or been slaughtered.

REUTERS JT RN2026