NOVOSIBIRSK, January 11 (RIA Novosti, Yana Ryabinskaya) - A strain of bird flu found in the Ukrainian autonomy of the Crimea is highly contagious for chicken but presents less of a danger for people, an expert from a virology center said Wednesday.
Specialists at the Vektor State Virology and Biotechnology Center near Novosibirsk in Siberia examined samples delivered from the Crimea in December 2005 and identified them as the deadly H5N1 strain, which is highly infectious for chicken.
"This confirms the need to isolate poultry farms and cull domestic fowl on the affected territories, which the Ukrainian authorities have already done," spokesperson Natalia Skultetskaya said.
However, tests conducted on people who had come into contact with infected birds showed that they had not caught the disease.
Skultetskaya said that experts were of the opinion that this was either because preventive measures had been effective or because the particular sub-strain in question was not contagious for humans.
In November-December 2005, the Ukrainian authorities in the Crimea first reported bird flu cases similar to the strains believed to have caused outbreaks in the Far East.
