Slovenia's veterinary agency has said it would extend measures to guard against the outbreak of bird flu to the whole country.
A day after news broke that a dead swan was found near the city of Maribor had the H5 strain of the avian flu, the Veterinary Administration said it was drawing up a decree to declare the whole country a "risk zone".
In line with the decree, which is expected to be published on Tuesday, poultry breeders would have to keep their birds away from wild birds and feed them in enclosed areas, VURS head Vida Cadonic Spelic told the press on Monday.
Cadonic Spelic explained that VURS decided to draft the decree since the 10 kilometre "high risk zone" declared around the site where the dead swan was found only partially covered 14 municipalities.
Moreover, the agency extended the high risk zone to include the Ruse and Selnica ob Dravi municipalities up the river Drava from Koblerjev zaliv, where the bird was found last week.
The entire Maribor municipality has also been declared a high risk zone; previously, only parts of the municipality were included.
"In these areas, which are close to sources of water and where there is high chance of contact with swans, poultry must be bred in enclosed areas," Cadonic Spelic said.
Samples of tissue taken from the dead swan are on their way to the EU's reference laboratory in Weybridge, she added.
"We expect to have the results within a week," she said, adding that the "laboratory was inundated with samples from other countries as well".
Cadonic Spelic also defended VURS for not immediately disclosing the presence of bird flu in the dead swan: "Partial information is not solid information, and bird flu is not a laughing matter."
"We would have caused more damage if we had not double-checked everything and started taking precautionary measures before informing the people," she said.
Meanwhile, Olga Zorman Rojs of the National Veterinary Institute said that the virus found in the dead swan "was very virulent, which is why the possibility that it is (the deadly) H5N1 strain has not been ruled out".
She added that the institute was taking measures as if the deadly strain was confirmed, including ordering mass culls of birds that came in contact with the dead swan.
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