Bulgaria lifted Friday a ban on live birds and nearly all poultry products from Turkey, where the situation of the fatal avian flu since October has proved to be better.

Under a decree signed Friday by Bulgarian Agriculture Minister Nihat Kabil, the Balkan country will renew imports of live birds, eggs, poultry meat and poultry-related products that are proven to be virus-free, except those which have undergone heat treatment or were obtained before September 25.

Citing reasons to made such a decision, the agriculture and forest ministry said the situation of bird flu in Turkey has become much better and the EU has just lifted a similar ban on Turkey.

Meanwhile, the ministry ordered the whole country, specially regions neighboring on Romania, which is trapped in a worsened situation of the avian flu, such as Burgas, Varna, Dobrich, Razgrad, Silistra and Shumen, to strengthen controls on live poultry trade.

It also asked border police to carry out more intensive check on vehicles from countries on the bird flu "black list".

Bulgaria, so far free of bird flu cases, still keeps bans on the import of poultry products from Romania, Macedonia, Croatia and Ukraine.

Source: Xinhua