Bird flu or Avian flu, also avian influenza, bird influenza, means flu from viruses adapted to birds, but is sometimes mistakenly used to refer to both other flu subsets such as H5N1 flu or the viruses that cause them such as H5N1.

Germany bird flu threat level high

Bird Flu :: Germany bird flu threat level high

The deadly bird avian flu virus H5N1 has spread to German poultry. A domestic goose died of the bird flu virus H5N1 in the village of Wickersdorf, Germany.

Germany animal-health scientists confirmed that the tests are positive for H5N1 bird flu virus in the goose.

German health & quarantine officials culled thousand of domesticated birds after the deadly H5N1 bird-flu virus was confirmed in a dead goose. The cull in nine villages was part of a quarantine ordered the previous day within a 13-kilometre radius of the influenza site.

Germany's leading institute for animal health has raised the bird flu alert level in the country to "high" after the H5N1 strain, potentially lethal to humans, was found in a domestic bird.

The infection of a goose in a household bird run was only the second time H5N1 has ever shown up in German poultry. The first time was last year near the city of Leipzig and led to a cull of 22,000 farm birds.

Since 2004, some 270 humans have been infected with bird flu in 10 countries, with about 167 fatalities, mostly in Asia, according to the World Health Organization. With the flu spreading around the world, the virus has turned up in birds in Asia, Europe and Africa. So far, bird flu has mostly been passed from birds either to other birds or, in isolated cases, to humans.

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