Israel reports new bird flu outbreak in poultry
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Israel announced on Thursday that it had detected the H5N1 strain of bird flu that is dangerous to humans in poultry near a kindergarten in a northern town on the Mediterranean coast.
The agriculture ministry said 18 contaminated birds had been found dead in a pets' corner near a kindergarten in the town of Binyamina.
A series of tests had confimed that the fowl died of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, a ministry statement said, adding that a situation room had been set up to try to prevent the spread of the virus.
The ministry ordered the culling of all fowl in a three-kilometre (two-mile) radius of the contaminated area in Binyamina, north of Tel Aviv, as a precaution.
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