Russia has told the European Union that a deadly bird flu outbreak has spread westwards to 220 kms (160 miles) south of Moscow, the European Commission said on Wednesday. Here is a short chronology tracking developments in the spread of Asian bird flu:Dec 15, 2003 - South Korea confirms a highly contagious type of bird flu at a chicken farm near Seoul and begins a mass cull of poultry when the virus rapidly spreads across the country.
Jan 8, 2004 - Vietnam says bird flu found on its poultry farms.
March 16 - China declares it has stamped out the disease.
Aug 19 - Malaysia says a strain of bird flu has been found in two chickens that died near the Thai border, its first cases.
Sept 27 - Thailand says it has found a case where one human probably infected another with bird flu. It said this was an isolated incident that posed little risk to the population.
April 5, 2005 - The U.N. says the H7 strain of bird flu, previously undetected in Asia, has been found in North Korea.
Sept 1 - Vietnam reports one new human death from bird flu, taking its total to 44. 65 people have died in Asia in total, including 12 in Thailand, five in Indonesia, four in Cambodia.
Oct 8 - Turkey reports its first cases of avian flu, and Romania reports suspected avian flu.
Oct 10 - The European Commission announces a ban on imports of live birds and feathers from Turkey to the 25-nation EU.
Oct 13 - A strain of the H5 bird flu virus has been detected in samples from Romanian ducks found in the Danube delta, confirming the virus has arrived in Europe.
-- The European Commission confirms the Romanian findings and immediately says it will ban Romanian imports.
-- The EU confirms Turkey has the type of bird flu dangerous to humans, the avian flu H5N1 high pathogenic virus.
Oct 17 - Greece says that a first case of bird flu in an EU member state had been detected on the Aegean island of Chios.
Oct 19 - A British laboratory has detected the H5N1 bird flu strain in new Danube delta samples from Romania taken from the village of Maliuc.
-- Russia tells the EU that a deadly bird flu outbreak has spread westwards to 220 kilometres (160 miles) south of Moscow. Russia has been fighting bird flu since mid-July and has killed over 600,000 domestic fowl.
Source: Reuters
20.10.2005