Azerbaijan: 3 Dead From Bird Flu

(CBS/AP)  Tests have confirmed that three people recently died from bird flu, a top Azerbaijani health official said Monday.

Deputy Health Minister Abbas Velibeyov told The Associated Press that tests conducted by the World Health Organization had confirmed the diagnosis of avian influenza in the deaths of three people, who all came from the same district on the ex-Soviet nation's Caspian Sea coast, south of the capital, Baku.

Velibeyov said that names and ages of the victims would be released on Tuesday.

Also Monday, Myanmar reported its first case of the deadly H5N1 strain, and there was a high risk poultry in Afghanistan were also infected, officials said a day after the virus gained new ground in Europe and Africa.

The virus was discovered in wild birds in Azerbaijan last month in an area along the Caspian Sea coast and has spread to the northeast and the southwest near the border with Iran. The deaths are the first reported cases in humans in the country.

Azerbaijan shares a short border with Turkey, where four children died recently of the disease. Bird flu has killed at least 98 people in Asia and Turkey since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. Almost all of the human deaths have been linked to contact with infected poultry, but experts fear H5N1 could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, sparking a human flu pandemic.

In other developments:

Authorities in Poland on Sunday announced confirmation of the country's fourth case of deadly avian flu. Laboratory tests confirmed the H5N1 strain in a dead swan found in a town near the border with Germany, said Tadeusz Wijaszka, head of the laboratory in Pulawy, central Poland.

Two wild swans in Greece tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain, the Agriculture Ministry said Sunday, bringing to 32 the number of bird flu infections found in birds in Greece since the first case was confirmed Feb. 11.

The number of wild birds found infected with H5N1 bird flu in Germany is approaching 200, authorities said Monday, after the confirmation of several new cases. A federal laboratory said the strain has been found in 192 wild birds, most of them near Germany's Baltic Sea coast. Three cats and a stone marten also have been diagnosed with the strain. The laboratory also said six ducklings found dead at a farm in Bavaria tested negative for the virus, relieving fears that H5N1 had reached farm birds in the country for the first time.

A racing pigeon association urged authorities Monday not to cull the country's 800,000 racing pigeons, arguing that the birds were not carriers of the deadly H5N1 strain of the flu virus. "Racing pigeons have a strict diet and are vaccinated against all diseases," said a statement from the Union of Federations of Romanian Pigeon Enthusiasts. There are about 6,000 breeders in Romania; they have 800,000 pigeons which take part in national and international competitions.

A new IMF report says a bird flu pandemic similar to the 1918 outbreak that killed more than 40 million could result in a "sharp but only temporary decline" in the world's economic activity. The report, released Monday, studied the possible financial and economic impact on the world should a bird flu pandemic erupt.

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