Special report: Global fight against bird flu

    BERLIN, April 5 (Xinhua) -- German authorities planned on Wednesday to cull 15,000 turkeys after bird flu virus was detected at a poultry farm in the east of the country, local report said.

    Scientists said they had detected the H5 subtype of the virus in at least one dead bird at the farm in the state of Saxony.

    Further tests were needed to determine whether it was the deadly H5N1 strain, German new agency DPA quoted the scientists assaying.

    This was the first case of bird flu at a commercial poultry farm in Germany, where hundreds of wild birds and two kinds of mammal have died of the virus since it was discovered in early February.

    The strain was first detected among wild birds on the German island of Ruegen in the Baltic Sea, but it has rapidly affected six states.

    The German government announced at the end of last month that it would spend 60 million euros (73 million US dollars) on bird flu research in the next four years, hoping to develop a vaccine for humans soon.

    The H5N1 strain has killed more than a hundred people globally. Enditem