According to an agricultural official’s statement, nearly 1.1 million chickens will be killed within the next several days in order to prevent an outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in Kuwait.
The chickens are going to be slaughtered at farms owned by three big companies and situated in Wafra, south of Kuwait City on the Saudi border. That’s where the majority of the 57 cases of the H5N1 virus have been recognized since the beginning of the outbreak in late February, Agence France Presse informed.
From the time when the outbreak started, around 200 000 fowl that were in contact with infected birds have been killed. Kuwait has forbidden the import and export of birds, shut down bird markets, and closed the only zoo in this country.
In early March, a group of specialists from the World Organization for Animal Health went to Kuwait in order to evaluate the outbreak and help officials tackle this problem it, AFP announced.
