MOSCOW, August 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's consumer protection and health authority has confirmed that a bird flu virus discovered in the Novosibirsk region (Western Siberia) came from Southeast Asia.
"The state center for virus and biotechnology studies, Vektor, identified a À/Í5N1/ virus in a sample taken in the village of Suzdalsk in the Novosibirsk region. [The virus] has been sequenced, and identified as coming from Southeast Asia," a news release said.
The document also said that four out of the five samples taken from birds who died of the bird flu in the Novosibirsk region had positively reacted to the À /Í5N1/ virus.
The local departments of the Altai, Tyumen, Omsk, Kurgansk, and other Siberian regions have been instructed to increase laboratory control over virus circulation on the bird migration routes, and to monitor, with the veterinary service, bird and human illnesses.
