Special report: Global fight against bird flu

    BUCHAREST, Nov. 14 (Xinhua) -- Romania is prepared from a strategic viewpoint to combat a new outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus, local epidemiologists were quoted as saying on Tuesday by the national Rompres news agency.

    After the eradication of all bird-flu outbreaks registered in 2005 and 2006, the Romanian authorities, during the period of "epidemiological peace", laid emphasis on the clinical and lab surveillance.

    An epidemiological investigation of about 300-500 poultry and wild birds has been conducted weekly, according to the Institute of Diagnosis and Animal Health.

    Experts of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization were present in the Danube Delta for two weeks to take collect samples from wild ducks and geese arrived in the area. All the samples collected, 162 wild birds and 26 bird corpses of several species, were tested last week in the lab and none showed traces of the H5N1 virus.

    In September 2005, Romania was the first European country in which the H5N1 bird flu virus was traced. The European officials hailed the quick eradication of the virus - 170 H5N1 infection areas during the two outbreaks and 1.4 million birds killed ¨C also taking into account the fact that no H5N1 infection has been reported in humans.