The Ministry's press service told ID Access that the viral infection has not been detected along the common migratory routes of birds along the Black Sea, through southern Ukrainian provinces of Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Mykolayiv and Kherson. There have also not been any outbreaks of bird flu anywhere in continental Ukraine, the press service said.
The ministries of Health and Emergency Situations have been vaccinating the population in the infected regions and culling birds from domesticated flocks. More than 61,000 people have been examined and 28 of them have signs of severe respiratory infection though officials assert that no humans have contracted avian influenza. More than 8,800 people have been inoculated.
Last week 35, 753 birds were culled, according to the Ministry of Emergency Services.
State of emergency and quarantines continue in the infected regions of Crimea and the sale of birds has been banned across Crimea.
Local farmers have received 703, 668 hryven (about $140,000) in compensation from government officials for culled birds.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's western neighbor, Romania, confirmed that cases of bird flue were discovered in to two additional villages, according to news reports. The villages are in the district of Buzau in eastern Romania, where several animals were found dead over the past few days.
"Results of tests on the dead animals confirm the presence of H5 virus in Padina et Braiesti," two villages in Buzau, veterinary official Gabriel Predoi told journalists today. He did not reveal how many cases of bird flu there were.
The villages have been quarantined and authorities have ordered hundreds of animals to be killed.
After more than a dozen outbreaks, Romanian veterinary officials expect more cases of avian influenza to emerge with the arrival of waves of migrating wild birds.
The deadly H5N1 strain has killed nearly 70 people in Asia in the past two years and is feared could eventually cause a human flu pandemic, which experts fear could cost the global community up to $800 billion in addition to scores of millions of deaths.
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