Animal virology

Between BGN 5 M and BGN 6 M will be needed in order for the state to deal with bird flu and compensate farmers, stated outgoing Agriculture Minister Desislava Taneva.

Taneva explained that bird flu is not dangerous for people.

A massive flu epidemic has spread across Turkey, with the Turkish Health Ministry announcing that one in three people is suffering from the disease in the country amid a drop in temperatures.

Greece has reported a case of the highly contagious H5N8 bird flu virus in a wild bird, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Monday, citing official information from Greece.

The virus was found in a wild swan in the Evros river delta in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, the Greek Ministry of Rural Development and Food said on a report posted on the OIE website.

A prototype vaccine for Ebola may be "up to 100 percent effective" in protecting against the deadly virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Dec. 23.

The Hellenic Center of Disease Control and Prevention (KEELPNO) is urging vulnerable groups of the population, and mainly the elderly, to get vaccinated against potent flu strands expected this winter.

Animal products' imports by consumers from Moldova and Ukraine will be banned in order to prevent the African swine fever (ASF) enter Romania, said on Friday the Agriculture minister, Achim Irimescu in western Timișoara.

At least 57 people have died from H1N1, also known as "swine flu," in Turkey over the last three months, Turkey's health minister said Jan. 28.        

A woman in Sierra Leone is thought to have died from Ebola, officials said Jan. 14, just hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an end to an epidemic of the disease.

Three people have died from swine flu over the past three days at a hospital in Istanbul.

No longer as exceptional as it used to be, the H1N1 virus, colloquially known as the swine flu, has become a common form of seasonal influenza, a professor at Ege University's Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases faculty has claimed.