State Veterinarian Administration confirmed a second case of bird flu among poultry on a farm in a Czech village on Wednesday.
This comes a week after the country’s first case of the potentially deadly H5N1 bird flu strain was identified among birds on a farm in an eastern Czech Republic village, Tisova.
The State Veterinarian Administration said on Wednesday that sixty broiler chickens bred on a farm in the village of Norin, about 4 km from Tisova, had tested positive for H5N1.
The administration’s spokesperson, Josef Duben, said the virus could have been passed on to the chickens by wild birds flying over the region during the mild winter. Another possibility is for the breed’s caretakers to have carried the virus in.
Whichever the cause may be, the whole chicken flock is to be culled and cordoned off by the police, Duben said. As an additional measure, birds raised by Norin’s residents will be culled as well.
The Norin farm and the Tisova farm where the bird flu virus was first discovered both belong to the same company. In Tisova, nearly one third of the 6,000 birds died. Remaining birds and animals in the village were culled.