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Maryland agriculture officials were killing more than 300,000 chickens Sunday and setting wider quarantine boundaries after confirming a pocket of avian flu. The strain of bird-killing virus detected within one of the world's premier poultry raising regions, the Delmarva Peninsula, does not sicken humans yet threatens the main industry of the region, delawareonline.com reported. Officials are including at least 71 farms within the latest quarantine area and killing 328,000 chickens at its center, containing 12 chicken houses. The disease is the same one discovered in nearby Delaware nearly a month ago. That area still hopes to complete a full month without a new outbreak, meeting a basic health requirement on the road to being declared disease free. In Maryland the quarantine area has been extended to a six-mile radius on both sidesOf U.S. 50 that reaches the Virginia border. Every one of the nearly 2,000 chicken farms in Delmarva are being tested for the virus. The outbreak comes a few weeks before planting of corn and soybeans begins and should it not be contained, farmers will not be able to use the customary chicken litter as fertilizer, increasing fertilizer costs. All rights reserved. Copyright 2004 by United Press International. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by United Press International. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of by United Press International. Related Links SpaceDaily Search SpaceDaily Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express 
Researchers Determine Reason For Deadly Spread Of 1918 Influenza
Chevy Chase - Feb 11, 2004The explosive spread of the influenza virus during the 1918 pandemic that killed some 20 million people worldwide was likely enabled by the unique structure of a protein on the virus's surface, researchers are reporting. The newly determined structure of the viral protein reveals that the 1918 strain of influenza underwent subtle alterations that enabled it to bind with deadly efficiency to human cells, while retaining the basic properties of the avian virus from which it evolved. |
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