Experts of the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department of Myanmar have assumed that the current outbreak of bird flu in Yangon might be due to the spread of H5N1 virus to chickens from native crows and sparrows, an official press media reported Friday.

Citing the finding of the experts, the New Light of Myanmar said the native crows and sparrows frequented the farm buildings whose partly damaged walls have hollows for the wild birds to enter, adding that the farm also raised ducks in the ponds where local fowls were intermingling with crows.

According to a statement of the department, suspicious avian influenza was detected in a small private poultry farm in northwestern Yangon's Mayangon suburban township after laboratory test was done on some dead chickens on Tuesday.

Under the risk prevention program, chickens of the farm were culled and buried and the whole farm was sterilized by spraying with pesticide, the statement said.

The authorities have placed the areas in a radius of one kilometer (km) to the affected farm as restriction zone and three townships of Mayangon, Yankin and South Okkalapa in a radius of 10 km as bird movement control zone, temporarily closing livestock trading markets within the control zone for three weeks.

The authorities have also warned farms in Yangon to prevent outsiders from entering them and to keep farm buildings from wild bird intrusion.

Deepened detection of the root cause of the disease is underway.

Other reports said the avian influenza has killed at least 68 birds since it was first detected on Monday.

According to the authorities' report to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Wednesday, a total of over 1, 300 chickens suspected of carrying the deadly H5N1 virus were slaughtered as an initial step by the authorities to deal with the fresh outbreak of the disease.

The Myanmar authorities reported Wednesday the renewed outbreak of the avian influenza in the poultry farm in Yangon to the FAO after it was detected and confirmed by themselves.

The destroyed chickens included 500 small hens, 360 laying hens and 500 hatched chickens, the FAO quoted the authorities as saying.

Further confirmation on the virus by international authoritative institutions is being expected.

The recurrence of the deadly influenza came nearly six months after Myanmar declared itself bird-flu-free in the country in September last year after making sure then that no virus had been present in the country during a three-month program on detection of avian influenza carried out with the cooperation of foreign experts.

Myanmar was first struck by an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in March 2006 in two divisions of Mandalay and Sagaing and since then altogether 342,000 chickens, 320,000 quails and 180,000 eggs as well as 1.3 tons of feedstuff were destroyed at 545 poultry farms.

So far, there has been no human cases detected with H5N1 in the country.

Source: Xinhua