Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, has asked his government to take measures to prevent a new outbreak of bird flu following the death of three children from the virus in near neighbour Turkey.
Gennady Onishchenko, Russia's chief state epidemiologist, has told Putin that Russian doctors at airports and railway stations have started examining people arriving from Turkey. 

Onishchenko was quoted on Sunday as advising Russians to avoid travelling to Turkey. Russia has been battling with bird flu in poultry since July, culling more than 600,000 domestic fowl. The virus has been confined in eight Russian regions from Siberia to European Russia. But no case of human infection has so far been registered in Russia. 

By the end of December, quarantine had been lifted from all but two locations, one in Astrakhan region and the other in Kalmykia, both located on the Caspian Sea.