NOVOSIBIRSK, May 25 (RIA Novosti) - Authorities in southwestern Siberia have imposed quarantine restrictions in four districts after outbreaks of bird flu, a local emergencies official said Thursday.
The emergence of the virus in the Omsk Region, whose capital is about 2,500 kilometers (1,600 miles) east of Moscow, is the first time avian influenza had been registered in Siberia this year.
"Tests confirmed bird flu [virus] in the four districts," he said, adding that authorities had acted to impose quarantine restrictions in the affected areas.
He said bird flu was suspected in one more area where 10 fowl had died in the last 24 hours and that a total of 185 domestic fowl had died at nine locations in seven districts since May 13.
The lethal H5N1 strain of the virus returned to the south of European Russia in February, but was largely contained in a massive vaccination campaign.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said last month that around 1.1 million birds had died of the disease in Russia, and 0.3 million had been culled in measures to control the spread of the virus since the beginning of February.
No human cases of bird flu have yet been diagnosed in Russia.
