Azerbaijan, Baku, 22 February / Trend corr. S.Babayeva /The first observations during the monitoring of bird flu has revealed that there is no virus present, Yolchu Khanvali, the press secretary in the State Veterinary Service at Azerbaijani Agricultural Ministry, reported on 22 February.
"The monitoring of wild animals will be completed today and the monitoring of domestic animals will take place next week," he said.
16 samples of Indian ink in Azerbaijani regions were collected. The monitoring covered the territory of National parks in Absheron, as well as the Caspian Sea coastline and the Davachi, Agjabadi and Lankaran regions.
The first preventative bird flu monitoring of 2008 revealed the virus. Laboratory analyses were made from blood samples from 1,993 animals.
In 2007, the State Service held 12 monitoring exercises, and over 8,000 samples of wild birds and poultry were analyzed. Bird flu was not found in any of them.
The ban on hunting, use and sale of wild birds in Azerbaijan which was imposed in autumn 2005 is still in force. All border checkpoints in the country are on medium security in order to prevent the spread of bird flu in the country.