Yerbolat Dosayev - Bird Flu

Bird Flu

Dosayev announced on 20 March 2006 that tests had confirmed that a dead swan found in Mangghystau Province, on Kazakhstan's Caspian Sea coast, had bird flu. Several areas in northern Kazakhstan were quarantined in 2005 when the H5N1 bird flu strain was found. Thousands of domestic fowl were culled when bird was detected in Kazakhstan in August. Asylbek Kozhimuratov, the Kazakh agriculture minister, said that all domestic poultry in Mangghystau had been vaccinated. Fowl in Atyrau province, a location of suspected vulnerability to bird flu, were being vaccinated. The Kazakh Government started vaccinating an estimated 8 million fowl in February to limit the spread of bird flu.