H5N1 bird flu confirmed in Sweden
16/3/2006 15:50
Swedish Board of Agriculture said yesterday tests have confirmed that two
wild ducks found in Stockholm last month carried the deadly H5N1 strain of bird
flu.
The two tufted ducks were found dead in Oskarshamn, on Sweden's
southeastern coast, at the end of February.
Since the first two cases were
found, around a dozen wild birds found along Sweden's southeast coast and on the
Baltic island of Gotland have been identified as carrying the H5
virus.
Preliminary tests late last month showed that two wild ducks carried
the aggressive H5 virus, but more tests were needed to ascertainthat they were
cases of the deadly H5N1 strain.
"The laboratory in Weybridge, England, has
now confirmed that it is an H5N1 virus, just as we thought," Berndt Klingeborn,
a virologist with the National Veterinary Institute, said in a statement from
the Board of Agriculture.
No cases have been reported in domestic fowl, he
said.
Xinhua
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