MOSCOW, August 24 (RIA Novosti) - The bird flu epidemic in Russia has been contained, Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev told a Moscow press conference Wednesday.
Gordeyev said the bird flu virus, H5N1, had been brought into the country by migratory birds and that the outbreak had affected domestic poultry at small private farms in six eastern regions bordering Kazakhstan (Altai, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Tyumen, Kurgan, and Chelyabinsk), as well as in Kalmykia, northwest of the Caspian Sea.
The main challenge now is to prevent the virus from spreading to commercial poultry farms, Gordeyev said. He called on the global community to join hands against the pathogenic virus.
