Jordan confirms first cases of bird flu in turkeys
Jordan today announced its first bird cases of avian flu in a few turkeys that died on a farm north of the capital Amman.
Health Minister Saeed Darwazeh said tests showed that a few turkeys that had died yesterday on a poultry farm in the town of Ajloun carried the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
People who had contact with the afflicted birds tested negative for the virus, Darwazeh said.
Authorities gave people living in the Jordan Valley a week to eat their-home raised poultry or risk having it culled, a measure taken after authorities in neighbouring Israel and the Palestinian territories found the virus in birds. The also stepped up monitoring of poultry farms in the valley.
Jordan had already banned imports of poultry products and pet birds. It has imported 60,000 doses of Tamiflu, used to treat humans afflicted with H5N1.
Turkey, Iraq and Egypt are the only countries in the region where people have died of the deadly virus. The discovery of afflicted birds in several countries including the three has led to extensive culling.
