Bird flu hits poultry in Israel and the West Bank - Israel News - Jerusalem Post

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Israeli and Palestinian
officials are implementing strict measures to curb the spread of avian
flu, which continues to infect poultry on both sides of the Green Line.

Thus
far, some 15,000 birds have died from the H5N1 avian flu at the Aviel
turkey-fattening farm near Hadera and an additional 4,000 have suffered
from the disease at a Palestinian coop near Jenin, Israeli and
Palestinian authorities reported. Within Israel proper, the Agriculture
Ministry said it has begun handling some 100,000 birds at coops in the
Aviel area and will continue monitoring poultry within 10 kilometers of
that spot.

A highly contagious disease among poultry because H5N1
is a zoonotic virus, the illness also can potentially spread to humans.
The first cases of H5N1, which mainly circulates in parts of Asia and
northeast Africa, to impact humans occurred in 1997, the World Health
Organization said.

According to data submitted to the World
Organization for Animal Health on Sunday by Dr. Nadav Galon, chief
veterinarian at the Agriculture Ministry’s Veterinary Services, 30,000
cases of H5N1 had been identified, with 15,000 resultant deaths and
10,000 other birds “destroyed.”

According to the report, 141,000
birds were deemed “susceptible,” but officials determined that 61,000 at
a farm located 350 meters away from Aviel had not yet been affected.

The
Aviel turkey-fattening farm contains 13 pens with a total of 55,000
males and 25,000 females aged 16 to 17 weeks, the report said. Mortality
was observed in five of the pens and was very high and hyper-acute in
three of them, Galon’s report indicated.