PARTS of a zoo in Ukraine's southern port city of Odessa have been put under quarantine pending test results to determine whether the lethal H5N1 bird flu virus has spread beyond Crimea, officials said today.
Samples of pheasants and parrots that began dying in the zoo last week were being analysed for traces of the H5N1 avian influenza strain, which is potentially deadly to humans, regional officials were quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Preliminary test results showed that the birds were infected with an H5 type of bird flu, said Pavel Melnik, Odessa's top veterinary official.
Since first appearing in Ukraine last December, the H5N1 virus had been recorded only in the country's Crimean peninsula, which lies around 190 kilometres southeast of Odessa across the Black Sea.
Ukraine has not recorded any instances of humans catching the virus.
The H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus has killed more than 90 people in Asia, Turkey and northern Iraq and has recently spread to several countries in Europe.
The 160-plus humans known to have caught the virus so far were infected after handling contaminated poultry.
Health experts fear the virus is close to mutating into a human-to-human form capable of killing millions worldwide.
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