United States gives Romania bird flu detection equipment

The United States government has donated equipment to help Romanian authorities make faster and more accurate bird flu tests, U.S. embassy said on Monday.

Photo: United States gives Romania bird flu detection equipment

One of the systems, known as a SmartCycler system, was presented by the U.S. Ambassador Nicholas Taubman to the National Animal Health Institute in Bucharest , which diagnoses bird flu.

The other system has been installed in a laboratory in Tulcea in the Danube Delta, an area which is most at risk from bird flu because of its large number domestic birds which have contact with migrating birds.

The deadly H5N1 bird flu strain was first detected in the Danube Delta in October. There have been more than 30 clusters of cases in small villages in Romania since then, forcing authorities to cull more than 150,000 domestic birds as a precaution. There have been no reported human cases of bird flu in Romania , reports the AP.

D.M.