Romania reported its first case of avian flu on Friday, but said it had not yet established whether the virus found in domestic birds in the Danube delta was harmful to humans, Reuters reported. The Danube delta is Europe's largest wetlands and a major migratory area for wild birds coming from Russia, Scandinavia, Poland and Germany. "We discovered today three cases of domestic birds which were tested positive for the avian flu in the village of Ceamurlia de Jos in the Danube delta," Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur told reporters. "There were three ducks in the yard of a peasant family." Flutur said tests would be carried out to determine whether the flu was the deadly H5N1 strain or a less dangerous one. "We will send the samples to Great Britain for a thorough analysis," he said. The H5N1 avian flu virus has infected more than 100 people, killing at least 60 in Asia since late 2003 and has decimated flocks of poultry in southeast Asia. H5N1 has been officially registered in six Russian regions in Siberia and the Urals, and has also been confirmed in Kazakhstan. --more 2245 Local Time 1945 GMT
