Turkey culled thousands of birds and a few other animals on Sunday to prevent the spread of avian flu after reporting its first outbreak of the disease on a farm near the Aegean Sea, national media said.
The authorities also imposed a three kilometre quarantine zone around the affected farm in northwest Turkey, where nearly 2,000 turkeys died from the globally feared disease last week, CNN Turk television said.
Television footage showed veterinary teams putting on protective overalls before entering the infected area. The remains of the 2,500 culled poultry were buried in lime-drenched pits. The authorities were also killing stray dogs and pigeons.
"At the moment this is not a situation which should cause (ordinary citizens) any worry. At the moment, there is no question of having household pets put down," the state Anatolian news agency quoted local official Resul Celik as saying.
"What matters for us is the farm where the outbreak occurred and the three kilometre quarantine area," he said.
The health ministry in Ankara also played down the incident, saying there was "no link" with the epidemic which recently swept southeast Asia and urged the public to remain calm.
"There is no question of a bird flu epidemic posing a general threat to society," NTV television quoted the ministry statement as saying.
It added that measures were being taken to ensure against any risks to human health.
Farm and Health Ministry officials were not directly available to comment on the reports and it was not clear why the reports of the outbreak only surfaced on Saturday evening.
Veterinary experts are carrying out tests to determine what strain of bird flu caused the turkey deaths.
The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed millions of birds across Asia and infected 116 people, killing more than 60 of them. Scientists fear the virus, currently known to pass to humans from birds, could mutate and be passed among humans.
The Hurriyet newspaper said up to 16,000 animals would be slaughtered but could be sold if tests certified that they had not been infected with the disease.
The affected district of Kiziksa will remain under quarantine for 21 days, newspapers said.
Officials say the infected turkeys in Kiziksa probably contracted the disease from migratory birds heading for a nearby natural park called Bird Paradise. The migratory birds come from Russia's Ural mountains, they said.
Russia has been badly hit by avian flu, which recently killed 100,000 birds in one large industrial farm in the Southern Urals, though the outbreak now appears to be petering out with the departure of migratory birds ahead of winter.
Romania reported its first case of avian flu on Friday but was
still trying to establish whether the virus found in domestic birds
in its Danube delta was harmful to humans.
Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur told state radio on Sunday
that scientists had so far been unable to isolate the virus in the
suspect birds, indicating it was less likely to be a virulent
strain.
Despite Romania's efforts, Hungary said on Sunday it has banned the import of poultry meat, livestock and all related products from Romania because of fears of bird flu.
The European Commission said on Sunday it was following developments in Romania and Turkey, and was in close contact with the EU hopefuls and member states.
"We're looking into it to establish the facts ... the Turkish and Romanian case are two different ones," a spokesman for the EU Commission said.
Hurriyet quoted Mehmet Eksen, owner of the stricken Turkish farm, as saying he now feared for his own health.
"I cried when I witnessed the death of my turkeys. I cannot forget those moments ... But now I think of myself and what will happen to my health. I cannot go near my wife and children," the paper quoted Eksen as saying.
The World Health Organisation warned last month that bird flu
was moving towards a form that could be passed between humans and
the world had no time to waste to prevent a pandemic.
