Third bird flu case suspected at farm near Moscow

Via Yahoo News, an AFP story: Third bird flu case suspected at farm near Moscow.

A third farm outside Moscow is suspected of being contaminated with the bird flu after 44 poultry were found dead, Russian veterinary authorities have said.

There was no confirmation as to the cause of the outbreak at the farm in the city of Podolsk, forty kilometres (24 miles) south of the capital, as tests were still being conducted, said Alexei Alexeenko on Saturday.

Two other outbreaks which occurred on Friday at farms near Odintsovo and Domodedovo -- two cities close to Moscow -- had been avian flu, he said.

Alexeenko added that it would be Sunday before tests at the two farms would show if the virus is the deadly H5N1 strain.

Meanwhile, International Herald Tribune reports Moscow suburbs quarantined:

Experts quarantined parts of three suburban Moscow districts and shut down an outdoor poultry market Saturday as they checked whether domestic fowl were killed by the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

A spokesman with the federal agricultural oversight agency Rosselkhoznadzor said officials on Saturday registered another incident, with dozens of chickens dying in a district south of Moscow.

Earlier, Nikolai Vlasov, a Rosselkhoznadzor veterinary official, said in televised comments that two dozen birds in total on Friday had been reported dying in the Odintsovo and Domodedovo districts, west and south of Moscow respectively. He said officials were taking worst-case precautionary measures pending the outcome of laboratory tests.