RIYADH, 11 April 2006 — With thousands of migratory birds starting their journey back home, chances of avian flu spreading from this flock are becoming remote, according to a senior official from the National Commission For Wildlife and Conservation (NCWCD).

“So far no death has been reported due to H5N1 among the thousands of migratory birds that flew into the Kingdom this winter,” Khaled Al-Humeidan, NCWCD’s director of public relations, told Arab News yesterday, adding that these birds that chose Saudi Arabia as home for their winter, are now returning to their original habitats beginning this month.

Some of the migratory birds that flew southward from the countries in the north, stayed in the Kingdom’s wetlands.

“These birds were seen in large numbers in places such as Al-Asfar Lake, the Jubail Marine Protected Area, Dawmat Al-Jandal in Jouf and Wadi Al-Jizan,” he said.

Birds such as doves, curlews and houbaras come to the Kingdom to spend the winter here. Other birds used Saudi Arabia as a transit point en route to Africa.

In December last year, the Kingdom imposed a strict ban on hunting migratory birds that came into the country in winter.

Humeidan said, to curb any spread of the avian flu virus, the government formed a national committee under the Ministry of Agriculture to monitor the movement of migratory species. As a precautionary measure, the import of all kinds of birds, including falcon, canary and lovebirds was banned by a royal decree last year, he added

Following the ban on hunting migratory birds, the NCWCD carried out tests in five locations to ensure that the country is H5N1-free. “Tests by a team of scientists and bird specialists on samples taken from these sites were negative,” Humeidan said. The tests were done on birds found in five major wetlands in the Kingdom.

The international spread of the virus in birds became apparent for the first time when more than 6,000 migratory birds, infected with the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus, died at the Qinghai Lake nature reserve in central China in April 2005. According to reports from World Health Organization (WHO), viruses from Turkey’s first two human cases, which were fatal, were also virtually identical to viruses from Qinghai Lake.

Last Saturday, while inaugurating the World Health Day celebrations in the Kingdom, Health Minister Hamad Al-Manie declared that there were no humans affected by the bird flu in the Kingdom.