"The amount of medicines required to protect poultry is sufficient," Yevgeny Nepoklonov, deputy chairman of the Federal Agricultural Agency, said during a telephone conference.
First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, chairing the session as the head of the anti-bird-flu HQ, said certain regions were late with taking the situation under control, and singled out the North Caucasus republic of Daghestan and Krasnodar Territory in southern Russia.
In February 2006, southern Russia was hit by a second wave of bird flu that killed over a million birds. No human cases have been registered.
Vaccination has begun in Daghestan and Stavropol Territory, another southern region, where about 260,000 fowls have already been inoculated. Some 8 million doses of the vaccine have been delivered to southern Russia.
Medvedev also urged governors to take personal control of anti-bird-flu efforts.
"The regions should draft separate recommendations," he said, adding that anti-epidemic measures had to be approved by governors.
Gennady Onishchenko, head of the Federal Service for the Oversight of Consumer Protection and Welfare, said the deadline for submitting regional plans was March 15, and condemned those local authorities that had closed regional borders as a preventive measure.
"It is arbitrary and an abuse of power," Onishchenko said, citing the border between Astrakhan Region, on the Volga, and Daghestan.
Medvedev said the legal foundation for destruction of infected birds and compensation for them had already been laid down. He told the agriculture agency to limit this year's spring hunt as another way to contain the spread of the disease.
"The hunting recommendations must be detailed and clear," he said.
Southern Russia is a stopover region for migrating birds, which are expected to arrive in the country March 15-20.
The agency's Nepoklonov proposed using the hunt to scare away migrating birds that pose a potential threat in spreading bird flu.
"Hunting must only be permitted in densely populated areas and poultry farms, but banned in nesting sites of wild birds," Nepoklonov said, adding that otherwise the virus would reach hundreds of towns and villages in Russia by June.
Russia is concerned by bird flu as it borders three of the seven countries where human cases of bird flu have been registered. The disease has hit birds in 41 countries so far.
