Turkeys from Amei Oz hazd been sent Sunday for slaughter, the media reported, and Agriculture Ministry officials were trying to locate and stop the trucks carrying them.

Meanwhile, the poultry growers' association demanded Monday that the government declare the outbreak of avian flu strain in Israel a natural disaster.

The demand came as the Agriculture Ministry's veterinary service ordered the culling of poultry transported to the "Off Kor" slaughterhouse in the southern town of Sderot, as the birds had come from one of the communities infected with the strain.

The association's secretary-general, Ya'akov Cohen, warned Monday that many farmers may not cooperate with the authorities unless the avian flu outbreak is recognized as a natural disaster, for fear of losing livestock without receiving proper compensation.

Lethal strain officially confirmed

The veterinary service confirmed Sunday that the bird flu virus that has hit turkeys in southern Israel is the lethal H5N1 strain, which may pose a danger to people who come into regular contact with the fowl.

The strain was isolated and identified in the turkey coops at the Ein Hashlosha and Holit kibbutzim and at Moshav Sdeh Moshe. The strain of virus that attacked the fowl at Kibbutz Nachshon has not been isolated yet, but ministry sources think it will also be H5N1.

The initial culling of birds in infected coops was completed Sunday at Holit, Ein Hashlosha and Sdeh Moshe. The operation moves Tuesday to Nachshon and Kibbutz Harel, and to the Tekoa and Tzalfon moshavim nearby, where Agriculture Ministry teams will be aided by personnel working for Defense Ministry contractors. In these communities there are very large numbers of chickens, so the damage there will be enormous. In the western Negev, culling of the fowl will begin Monday at Kibbutz Sufa near Holit, and at the Kissufim and Nirim kibbutzim near Ein Hashlosha.

Farmers, veterinarians: Ministry moving too slowly

The Agriculture Ministry estimates the culling operation will be completed by week's end. Officials were hopeful Sunday that the measures taken thus far - such as culling all fowl within a 3-kilometer radius of the infected coops, and imposing a quarantine on communities within a 10-kilometer radius - will prevent the virus from spreading.

However, farmers and veterinarians in the infected areas say the Agriculture Ministry is moving too slowly. So far, the culling has been done to only half of all birds at Holit and a third of those at Ein Hashlosha. The culling at Nachshon began only last night - more than 48 hours after the deadly virus was discovered.

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting that there is no evidence of the avian flu spreading to humans, and added that the government is taking every precaution to ensure that this does not happen.

The cabinet approved the creation of an interministerial team to formulate a compensation plan for poultry farmers who are being forced to destroy tens of thousands of fowl.

The Agriculture Ministry's deputy director general, Itzik Ben David, told Haaretz on Sunday that the culling process could affect a total of 900,000 birds. He estimated that the financial compensation to farmers will total between NIS 15 and 20 million, assuming no additional communities are affected.

Ministry officials on Sunday denied a report in the media claiming the ministry was concerned that infected poultry had been slaughtered in Kiryat Malakhi and sold to stores and markets. The ministry also denied rumors that the slaughterhouse in question had been identified as the source of contamination of turkeys with avian flu.

Agriculture Minister Ze'ev Boim and Health Minister Yaakov Edri briefed the cabinet on the measures being taken to contain the flu outbreak. Boim said that a shipment of four million doses of vaccine will be arriving from the Netherlands in the next few days. He explained that this vaccine will be used only if the quarantine imposed on infected areas proves ineffective.

Health Ministry director general Prof. Avi Yisraeli told the cabinet that 30 senior ministry officials were dispatched to oversee the culling process and to ensure that everything possible is done to prevent human infection.

Meanwhile, the Health Ministry is continuing to administer Tamiflu pills to several dozen workers who handled turkeys in the moshavim and kibbutzim that had the virus, as well as to Agriculture Ministry employees involved in the culling operation there.

The Health Ministry has sent blood samples from several dozen workers to the laboratory to check whether they have been infected.

According to Health Ministry figures, emergency warehouses have a stockpile of six million Tamiflu pills manufactured by Roche Pharmaceuticals, which are supposed to be enough, should the need arise, to treat 7 percent of the country's population. (This medication is administered at a dose of one pill per day for a week to 10 days.)

Tamiflu is administered as a preventive measure against the disease, and is the only substance that has been proved to be somewhat effective against avian flu in humans. According to the Health Ministry, another shipment of five million pills is due to arrive in Israel by the end of May, along with a syrup version for children.

Half a year ago, the government approved a special budget of NIS 150 million for the purchase of the drug, and the Health Ministry has only spent about half of that amount so far. Ministry officials are currently discussing from which company to purchase the rest of the supply.

The man, identified as Mohammed Bahaaeddin Abdel-Menem, was recovering in the hospital after being admitted Thursday with a fever, Deputy Health Minister Nasser el-Sayyed said.

Ibrahim al-Gazzar, a cousin of the latest victim, said he doubted that other villagers were educated enough to seek medical treatment. "They would think it was a normal flu - that will be a disaster."

Um Mohammed, a 35-year-old widow and mother of two, complained that although she had told authorities that her birds were dying, "They did nothing to help me."

"Day after day, I watched my chickens die. I felt as though I was handcuffed," she said.

The country's first known human case, a woman who died Friday, was from the same province, north of Cairo. The two victims had not had any contact and were from different villages, el-Sayyed told The Associated Press.

The Egypt-based U.S. Naval Medical Research was conducting additional tests to confirm whether the illnesses were caused by the H5N1 strain, the Health Ministry said in a statement run by the state Middle East News Agency.

Egypt discovered its first cases of the virus in birds last month.

Turkey and Iraq are the only other Middle Eastern countries where humans have died of the virus.

Israeli veterinary officials on Sunday proceeded with the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of birds.

Agriculture Ministry spokeswoman Dafna Varisca said "it's very close to 100 percent" sure that the virus has spread to birds in Israel.

The H5N1 virus has killed at least 98 people - most in Asia - since 2003.

Robert G. Webster is one of the few bird flu experts confident enough to answer the key question: Will the avian flu switch from posing a terrible hazard to birds to becoming a real threat to humans?

There are "about even odds at this time for the virus to learn how to transmit human to human," he told ABC's "World News Tonight." Webster, the Rosemary Thomas Chair at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., is credited as the first scientist to find the link between human flu and bird flu.

Webster and his team of scientists are working to find a way to beat the virus if it morphs. He has even been dubbed the Flu Hunter.

Right now, H5N1, a type of avian influenza virus, has confined itself to birds. It can be transmitted from bird to human but only by direct contact with the droppings and excretions of infected birds.

But viruses mutate, and the big fear among the world's scientists is that the bird flu virus will join the human flu virus, change its genetic code and emerge as a new and deadly flu that can spread through the air from human to human.

If the virus does mutate, it does not necessarily mean it will be as deadly to people as it is to birds. But experts such as Webster say they must prepare for the worst.

"I personally believe it will happen and make personal preparations," said Webster, who has stored a three-month supply of food and water at his home in case of an outbreak.

Frightening Warning

"Society just can't accept the idea that 50 percent of the population could die. And I think we have to face that possibility," Webster said. "I'm sorry if I'm making people a little frightened, but I feel it's my role."

Most scientists won't put it that bluntly, but many acknowledge that Webster could be right about the flu becoming transmissible among humans, even though they believe the 50 percent figure could be too high.

Researcher Dr. Anne Moscona at New York Weill Cornell Medical Center said that a human form may not mutate this year or next - or ever - but it would be foolish to ignore the dire consequences if it did.

"If bird flu becomes not bird flu but mutates into a form that can be transmitted between humans, we could then have a spread like wildfire across the globe," Moscona said.

People have been living with backyard flocks of poultry since the dawn of civilization. But it wasn't until poultry production became modernized and birds were raised in much larger numbers and concentrations that a virulent bird flu evolved. Somehow, the virus that arose in Scotland found its way to China, where, as H5N1, it has been raging for more than a decade.

Industrial poultry-raising moved from the West to Asia in the last few decades and has begun to supplant backyard flocks there.

Poultry may represent a family's greatest wealth. The birds often are not eaten until they die of old age or illness. The cost of the virus to people who have raised birds for months or years is incalculable and the compensation risible: In Thailand, farmers have been offered one-third of their birds' value since the outbreak of bird flu.

Some researchers still blame migratory birds for the relentless spread of the bird flu virus. But Martin Williams, a conservationist and bird expert in Hong Kong, contends that wild birds are more often victims than carriers.

Researchers concede that the global poultry trade, much of which is illicit, plays a far larger role in spreading the virus.

The Nigerian government traced its outbreak to the illegal importation of day-old chicks. Illegal trading in fighting cocks brought the virus from Thailand to Malaysia in fall 2005. And it is probable that H5N1 first spread from Qinghai to Russia and Kazakhstan last summer through the sale of contaminated poultry.

But an increasingly hysterical world targets migratory birds.

In early February, a flock of geese, too cold and tired to fly, rested on the frozen waters of the Danube Delta in Romania. A group of 15 men set upon them, tossed some into the air, tore off others' heads and used still-living birds as soccer balls. They said they did this because they feared the bird flu would enter their village through the geese. Many conservationists worry that what happened in Romania is a foreshadowing of the mass destruction of wild birds.

Meanwhile, deadly H5N1 is washing up on the shores of Europe.

Brown, the virologist, says the commercial poultry industry, which caused the catastrophe in the first place, stands to benefit most. The conglomerates will more and more dominate the poultry-rearing business. Some experts insist that will be better for us.

For instance, epidemiologist Michael Osterholm at the University of Minnesota contends that the "single greatest risk to the amplification of the H5N1 virus, should it arrive in the U.S. through migratory birds, will be in free-range birds ... often sold as a healthier food, which is a great ruse on the American public."

The truly great ruse is that industrial poultry farms are the best way to produce chickens -- that they are keeping the world safe from backyard poultry and migratory birds. But what's going to be on our tables isn't the biggest problem.

The real tragedy is what's happened in Asia to people who can't afford cheap, industrial chicken. And the real victims of industrially produced, lethal H5N1 have been wild birds, an ancient way of life and the poor of the Earth, for whom a backyard flock has always represented a measure of autonomy and a bulwark against starvation.

Wendy Orent is the author of "Plague: The Mysterious Past and Terrifying Future of the World's Most Dangerous Disease."