(source: Sme)
The number of confirmed cases of bird flu in Slovakia keeps increasing. Since late December the State Veterinary and Food Administration (ŠVPS) has registered seven outbreaks of avian flu at local poultry farms and the number of outbreaks of the disease in wild birds has increased to 35. Almost half of the latter have been water fowl while birds have died repeatedly in the same places, especially in the area of Žitný Ostrov and its vicinity in southern Slovakia, the SITA newswire reported.
The region most hit by the avian flu is southern Slovakia where a part of the Komárno district has been declared a monitored area. This is because swans winter here - in the western part of the Váh River and as a result the disease keeps spreading among them.
The occurrence of bird flu has been confirmed in almost all EU member countries except the Baltic countries and Portugal. One of the hardest hit countries is Slovakia’s neighbour – Hungary. Here farmers had to destroy almost 3.5 million pieces of poultry.
The first case of the avian flu in Slovakia occurred in Bratislava’s borough of Dúbravka when an elderly couple reported on December 27 the death of their complete flock of hens – 65 birds. They were breeding them for meat and eggs for their own consumption.
