Bird flu found in north Israel

JERUSALEM – Israeli authorities ordered fowl destroyed in an area of northern Israel on Thursday after chickens kept at a kindergarten were diagnosed with a deadly strain of bird flu.

Most of the chickens in the coop in a Binyamina kindergarten died, and veterinarians determined they were infected with the H5N1 strain of bird flu. Israel TV showed footage of yellow-suited, masked workers disinfecting the kindergarten in the northern Israeli town.

Fowl were to be destroyed in a two-mile radius from Binyamina, near Israel’s Mediterranean coast south of the port city of Haifa, media reports said.

There were outbreaks of bird flu in Israel and the Gaza Strip in 2006, and hundreds of thousands of fowl were destroyed. Four cases of suspected bird flu were reported among workers who had handled the birds in Israel.

Israeli media reported there was little danger to humans from the latest outbreak, but the disease can spread quickly among birds. Nearly all the cases of humans contracting bird flu in recent years have involved people who were in direct contact with infected birds.