| ■ Kuwait Bird Flu Outbreak Prompts Cull of 1.1 Million Chickens | 07.04.02 |
| About 1.1 million chickens will be slaughtered within the next few days in an effort to halt an outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in Kuwait, an agricultural official said Thursday. The chickens will be destroyed at farms owned by three large companies and located in Wafra, south of Kuwait City on the Saudi border. That's where most of the 57 cases of the H5N1 virus have been detected since the start of the outbreak in late February, Agence France Presse reported. Since the outbreak began, about 200,000 fowl that were in contact with infected birds have been killed. Kuwait has banned the import and export of birds, shut down bird markets, and closed the nation's only zoo. In early March, a team of experts from the World Organization for Animal Health traveled to Kuwait to assess the outbreak and help officials deal with it, AFP reported. |