Croatia said on Wednesday that its efforts to prevent bird flu from spreading from wild birds to poultry had been successful, the Croatian news agency reported from Zagreb.

Addressing the parliament, Croatian Agriculture Minister Petar Cobankovic said that Croatia was the first European state that managed to isolate the virus on wild birds, thus preventing it from spreading onto poultry and causing major damage to the economy.

Citing laws and regulations, Cobankovic said part of the poultry in areas where the virus had been detected had to be culled to prevent the virus from spreading.

Earlier in the week, Cobankovic said that the ban on keeping poultry in the open would be lifted on Friday, on condition poultry was kept in enclosed spaces.

However, the government's order on keeping poultry in enclosed spaces will remain in force within 20 kilometers of the fish farm in Nasice and the fish farm Grudnjak in the village of Zdenci, where the bird flu virus was found on Oct. 21.

Source: Xinhua