Russia reports 3rd H5N1 bird flu outbreak in 2007

MOSCOW, Sept 4 (Reuters) Russia today reported its third outbreak this year of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu after 410 birds died on a poultry farm in the country's south, but the growing poultry sector is set to withstand the scare.

Another 414 birds were culled and strict quarantine measures were in place at the farm in the Krasnodar region after local laboratory tests confirmed the presence of the virus in dead birds, Russia's animal and plant health watchdog said.

''It's serious enough to bring in strict measures, including quarantine, to make sure it doesn't spread,'' Alexei Alexeyenko, spokesman for the Rosselkhoznadzor agency, said.

''An investigation is being carried out to determine the source of the infection.'' The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain was responsible for the deaths of birds at the Lebyazhye-Chepiginskoye farm, in the same region where the virus was detected in dead domestic birds in January.

Russia's second outbreak of 2007 occurred in February, when several cases in towns around Moscow were traced to the capital's best-known pet market.

Russia expects to boost poultry meat output 16 per cent this year to about 1.8 million tonnes, cutting the share of imports in domestic consumption. Russian poultry producers last year supplied about 53 per cent of the country's consumption.

Dmitry Rylko, general director of the Institute for Agricultural Market Studies, said Russia's size and its quick reaction to bird flu cases offered commercial poultry farmers protection against bird flu.

''Such cases will be repeated from time to time in various regions of the world, including Russia,'' he said.

''In Russia, large-scale commercial farming is quite well protected against it due to good quarantine measures and the very low density of the poultry population, even in the south.'' Russia's largest poultry producer is London-listed Cherkizovo , which last month acquired the country's fourth-largest producer, Chicken Kingdom, for 143 million dollar.

Russia is stimulating an increase in poultry production partly by regulating imports with tariff quotas. Poultry import volumes fell 8.2 per cent in the first half of 2007, although higher prices meant their value rose to 419.1 million dollar.

Russia last month banned poultry from Italy and Germany after bird flu was discovered at farms in both countries.

Bird flu has killed 193 people worldwide out of 320 known human cases since it re-emerged in Hong Kong in 2003. Most of the deaths have occurred in Asia and no human cases have ever been reported in Russia.

The H5N1 strain of the virus is mainly transmitted between birds.

Most human cases can be traced to direct or indirect contact with infected birds.

Experts fear, however, that the virus could change into a form easily transmitted from person to person.

REUTERS PD PM1607