Russia Earmarks $43 Million To Fight Bird Flu

A Russian woman cautiously holds one of her roosters (file photo) (AFP)

2 February 2006 -- Russia's Health Minister Mikhail Zurabov today said the Russian government has earmarked more than $43 million to combat bird flu.

Zurabov said some $12 million would be used to identify cases of bird flu, and diagnose the disease in Russia and elsewhere in the Commonwealth of Independent States, CIS.

No cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus have been found in humans in Russia, but the disease has been detected in fowl since the middle of 2005 and hundreds of thousands of birds have been culled.

(AFP)