ASTANA, Aug 19 (Reuters) - Kazakh veterinary officials on Friday reported new bird deaths from avian influenza in a village in north Kazakhstan, the seventh place in the Central Asian state to report an outbreak of the disease. The news came after the World Health Organisation (WHO) called for tight checks in Russia and Kazakhstan to detect bird flu outbreaks amid fears the virus could spread westwards to Europe.
"Laboratory tests on the blood of seven (dead) birds detected bird flu antibodies in three of them," the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement. The seven domestic birds were found dead on Aug. 15 and 16 in Nalobino, a northern Kazakh village near the Russian border, it said. A quarantine had been put in place. There was no immediate word on whether the latest outbreak involved the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, which is dangerous to humans and which experts fear could unleash a global flu pandemic. The WHO said 9,000 birds had died or been destroyed since the outbreak started in Kazakhstan late last month and 120,000 have perished in Russia. The H5N1 virus has been detected in both countries, although so far no humans have caught the virus. It has killed more than 50 people in Asia since 2003. Mass bird deaths in a Russian region to the west of the Ural mountains this week have stoked fears that the virus may be spreading to Europe as wild birds migrate for the winter. As of Friday morning, the virus was officially registered in 40 Russian villages across western Siberia, while 78 other small settlements had suspected cases of the deadly disease, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement. Poultry farms and slaughterhouses in European Russia, including areas near Moscow, have beefed up veterinary checks and sanitary controls in the past few weeks to prevent the disease from reaching supermarkers and restaurants. Germany´s government is to announce emergency restrictions on keeping poultry in the open while the Dutch government has decreed that all poultry must be kept indoors from Monday to prevent contact with migrating birds.