Croatia has started testing dead birds found by citizens for possible avian flu.
"Until recently, people simply did not notice dead birds but now they see them everywhere and immediately call the police," an agriculture ministry official told journalists today.
He was commenting a newspaper report that 10 dead starlings found near Zagreb were sent to a veterinary institute for testing.
The starlings had no visible injuries, which prompted citizens to suspect bird flu, the Jutarnji Listdaily said. Starlings are migratory and might have been in contact with infected birds.
Croatia and Serbia lie on one of the main routes migratory birds from Europe use to go to Africa, where they could be in contact with infected birds.
British laboratory tests at the weekend identified the deadly H5N1 virus in ducks found dead in Romania.
Experts fear the H5N1 virus, which has killed more than 60 people and caused the death of millions of birds in Asia since 2003, could mutate and spread easily among humans, creating a pandemic that might kill tens of millions of people.