A bird flu outbreak in seven northern Kazakh villages is dangerous to humans and threatening the west of the sprawling country, the Agriculture Ministry said yesterday.

"The H5N1 strain has been detected in all seven villages (where an outbreak was reported)," Asylbek Kozhumratov, director of the ministry's Veterinary Department, told reporters.

"The western region is now in the risk zone because (migratory) birds are starting to fly to the Caspian Sea and Urals-Caspian basin," he said.

The outbreak, which spread from Siberia in neighboring Russia, has prompted fears in Europe that the disease might spread there and unleash an influenza pandemic.

Although the H5N1 strain has killed more than 50 people in Asia since 2003, no one has caught it in Russia or Kazakhstan.

Kozhumratov said no new cases had been reported since August 15 in Kazakhstan, but that authorities would keep quarantines and other measures against bird flu in place until the end of October as a precaution.

Since its discovery on a farm in Siberia in mid-July, bird flu has spread to other areas in Russia.
More than 130,000 birds have been culled to try to prevent further contagion.

Another 11,715 birds died of the virus, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said in a report yesterday.
 
In Kazakhstan, at least 9,000 birds have died or been destroyed since the outbreak started in the north of the Central Asian state last month.

A senior veterinary official in Russia on Monday urged more international co-operation in fighting avian influenza.

In Europe, the Netherlands, spooked by the Russian and Kazakh outbreaks, has ordered all poultry indoors while German officials have said they are ready to order flocks to be kept in pens to prevent contact with migrating wild birds.

The European Commission said on Monday it did not yet see a need for more steps to stop the virus entering the 25-nation European Union.

Yesterday, the French Agriculture Ministry said there was a limited risk of European contamination with bird flu, but urged poultry producers to be on their guard for any sign of illness among their flocks.

Meanwhile, Hungary will start human trials of a bird flu vaccine as soon as the country's pharmaceutical ethics committee approves the trials, Hungarian Public Health Office spokesman Emese Ritook told state news agency MTI said yesterday.

Ritook said animal testing had already been completed and that the human trial would start with 150 people, including Hungary's Chief Medical Officer Laszlo Bujdoso.

Blood samples will be taken to prove the vaccine's effectiveness three weeks after immunization, then again after three and six months, Ritook said.

Provided tests are successful, production of the vaccine will start if World Health Organization registers virus transmission from human to human.

Hungarian health workers and the elderly will be the first to get the new vaccine, but after that it will be accessible to anyone, Ritook said.

Ritook said 450 doses of the vaccine have been produced so far, all ready for human testing.

(China Daily August 24, 2005)