MOSCOW, MARCH 3. /RIA NOVOSTI / -- Chicken flu epidemic is not threatening Moscow, state chief sanitary physician of Moscow Nikolai Filatov has told reporters on Wednesday. "The possibility of catching the chicken flu cannot be ruled out but everything is being done in Moscow to secure the people against it", he said.
"The disease can be contracted in direct contact with birds, for instance in dressing chicken carcasses or looking after birds. The virus passing from man to man has not been proved", Filatov said. Not one case of the disease has been detected in Moscow and everybody getting over flu-types infections is checked, he said.
The Moscow veterinary services have banned the import of poultry meat from three states of the United States and South-East Asian countries. "We have gone a long way to prevent chicken flu in Moscow", Filatov stressed.
In case this does happen, all the Moscow services will jointly work to contain the disease, Filatov assures.
