Israel To Slaughter Half Million Birds

Israeli veterinary officials on Sunday proceeded with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands turkeys and chickens as new tests came close to confirming Israel's first outbreak of the deadly bird flu.

Agriculture Ministry spokeswoman Dafna Varisca said "it's very close to 100 percent" sure that the virus has spread to Israel.

She said test results identified hemagglutinin, one of the two proteins in the deadly strain of avian flu. Test results from the second protein, neuraminidase, were still pending, she said.

Meanwhile, initial tests at a U.S. Navy lab show that a 35-year-old woman who died this week in Egypt had bird flu, officials said. If the results are confirmed, she would be the country's first known human death from the disease.

Even while waiting for formal confirmation, Israel was taking no chances. The Cabinet devoted its weekly meeting Sunday to the outbreak, while veterinary officials dressed in protective suits continued the systematic slaughter of poultry in four farming communities suspected of being hit by the virus.

Varisca estimated 400,000 to 500,000 turkeys and chickens would be killed by drinking poisoned water.

At Sunday's Cabinet meeting, acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert pledged to form a task force within days to handle compensating farmers for their losses. Damage is expected to run into millions of dollars.

"There is no indication that there is a possibility that the disease has spread to humans," Olmert told the Cabinet. "All measures necessary to ensure that won't happen have been taken." Officials say there is no risk of contracting the disease from properly cooked poultry.

H5N1 has killed or forced the slaughter of tens of millions of chickens and ducks across Asia since 2003, and recently spread to Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

Health officials fear H5N1 could evolve into a virus that can be transmitted easily between people, potentially triggering a global pandemic, though there is no evidence that is happening.

About 100 people have died from the disease worldwide, most after having been directly infected by sick birds. Several people were hospitalized in Israel on suspicion they might have been infected, but those concerns were quickly dismissed, and the patients were released.

The government had been anticipating an outbreak of the disease because the flu already had been reported in nearby countries. Israel is at the crossroads of major bird migratory paths.

The Maariv newspaper on Sunday ran a photograph of turkey carcasses on one of the affected farms lying on the ground exposed, where scavenging birds could pick at them and pass on the disease.

Dr. Shimon Perk, head of the Agriculture Ministry's poultry diseases unit, said that problem has since been resolved.

The flu alert was sounded on Wednesday after thousands of turkeys started dying in southern and central Israel. By late Thursday, health officials proclaimed that the disease apparently had hit, and the killing of turkeys began over the weekend as a protective measure.

The Agriculture Ministry has quarantined the four infected farming communities, barring people from entering a two mile radius. The ministry was also testing fowl within a six mile radius of those areas to ensure the flu has not spread.

Perk said he expected all the flocks in the quarantined areas to be destroyed within the next few days.

Palestinian heath officials, meanwhile, fearing the flu would spread into their territories, buried alive hundreds of chickens on Saturday. The ministry officials said they had taken blood samples from the chickens, but did not want to risk waiting two or three days for the results.

In Egypt, the Cairo lab found that the woman, who died Friday, had the H5N1 strain, lab spokesman Andrew Stegall said Saturday. The World Health Organization will conduct further tests in an effort to confirm the findings, said Hassan el-Bushra, the WHO's regional adviser for emerging diseases.

A number of people who came in contact with the woman also are being tested, el-Bushra told The Associated Press. He would not say how many people were being tested or whether they showed any symptoms of bird flu.

El-Bushra said the additional testing would be done by a lab in London or Atlanta, but he could not say when results would be available.

Egypt's health minister, Hatem El-Gabali, said earlier that the woman, from the area of Qalyoubiya, north of Cairo, was raising poultry at her home and some of her birds also died, according to the official news agency MENA.

Police identified the woman as Amal Mohammed Ismail and said she was hospitalized in the regional capital, Qalyoub, about two weeks ago. She subsequently was transferred to the Cairo Fevers' Hospital, where she died.

Ismail's home since has been sealed off, police said.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed or forced the slaughter of tens of millions of chickens and ducks across Asia since 2003, and recently spread to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Health officials fear H5N1 could evolve into a virus that can be transmitted easily between people, potentially triggering a global pandemic.

That has not happened yet, but at least 98 people, excluding the Egyptian woman, have died from the disease worldwide, two-thirds of them in Indonesia and Vietnam, according to WHO figures.

If this case is confirmed, Egypt would join Turkey and Iraq as the only countries in the Middle East where humans have died of the virus, although birds in several countries have been afflicted. At least four people in Turkey and two in Iraq have died of the virus.