Norway And Finland Fight To Fight Fast-spreading Bird Flu

JAKARTA - Norway and Finland are facing a record bird flu outbreak this year that has killed thousands ofipelago birds and other species, endangered livestock and restricted travel in some areas, officials said.

Avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has been circulating across Europe in recent years, leading to the culling of millions of poultry on French farms in May and June, affecting the supply of poultry meat and eggs.

Officials in the Arctic city of Vadso, part of the Norwegian region of Finnmark, said they had amassed more than 10,000 poultry that died in the area. Meanwhile, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority on Thursday imposed travel bans covering three nature reserves.

"The outbreak we've seen in various places in Finnmark this year is much bigger than we've seen in the past in Norway," said Ole-Herman Tronerud, chief animal health officer at the Norwegian Food Safety Authority.

Types of the H5N1 virus have spread among poultry and wild birds for years, however, there have been sporadic outbreaks reported globally in mammals such as cats, minks and oars.

Finland's neighboring countries also said wild birds were heavily affected and that types of H5N1 had now been found in 20 fur farms, up from 12 farms earlier this week.

"The pathogen has been confirmed as a variant circulating, especially among sparrows," the Finnish Ministry of Social Affairs and Health said in a statement on Wednesday.

Earlier, three UN agencies this month warned that outbreaks around the world raised concerns that the virus might adapt to infecting humans more easily, and urged countries to strengthen disease surveillance and improve cleanliness on poultry farms.

Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) said the risk of human transmission from H5N1 was still low, but said reports of infection in mammals needed to be closely monitored.