ROSTOV-ON-DON, December 20 (RIA Novosti, Ilya Livada) - Five more birds have died in the Astrakhan Region, southern Russia, a spokesman for the local branch of the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said Tuesday.
A total of 565 carcasses of wild birds have been found in the region since the first bird flu case was registered there on November 17, the ministry said. Laboratory tests conducted in that month showed that some of the birds had died from the H5 strain of bird flu, which is less dangerous than the H5N1 sub-strain that has caused human fatalities in Asia.
A ministry official said no domestic birds or people had yet been diagnosed with bird flu.
