India bird flu tests clear 11 as fears rise in EU

By Krittivas Mukherjee

MUMBAI (Reuters) – Indian authorities on Thursday cleared 11 out of 12 people quarantined following an H5N1 outbreak in chickens, while EU states tested farm birds as the virus threatened to hit their domestic fowl for the first time.

France found a suspected outbreak of H5N1 at a turkey farm in the east of the country and was awaiting test results due on Friday. Cases in domestic birds are likely to shake the poultry industry, which has already been hit by falling sales.

"For the moment it’s just a suspicion but we have to kill off the flock this afternoon, even before we have the final results, so that we are in line with international rules," Farms Minister Dominique Bussereau said. The farm has more than 11,000 birds.

A second test on a German farm duck was negative after initial tests suggested it might have had the virus. Results from a third, conclusive test were still awaited.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed more than 90 people since 2003, made its first appearance in Slovakia in a wild falcon and a grebe, while scientists in Australia said it would not be surprising if it had arrived on its shores.

The rapid spread of the virus from Asia into the Middle East, Africa and Europe has heightened fears of a human pandemic and triggered sharp falls in poultry sales.

In India, where hundreds of millions of people live in rural areas side-by-side with livestock and domestic fowl, the risk of human infection — which comes from direct contact with an infected bird — is deemed higher than in other countries.

So far there have been no human cases in India, but authorities were carrying out tests on a dozen people quarantined with suspected bird flu in Navapur, a remote town in India’s western Maharashtra state. Eleven of the 12 had tested negative but the last sample was undergoing further tests.

Authorities had virtually sealed off Navapur, placing restrictions on trains and road traffic passing through. Culling in the area was over and more than 345,000 birds had been destroyed but authorities said they had other work to do.

EUROPE’S FEARS

There have been no cases of human-to-human transmissions of the virus, but experts fear H5N1 could mutate into a form where this is possible, causing a pandemic that could kill millions.

A Bulgarian man tested negative after doctors isolated him when two of his ducks died and he began showing flu-like symptoms, health ministry officials said.

In Europe, the most immediate concerns are of the virus hitting domestic poultry. Mass culling would devastate the EU’s 20 billion euro ($23.8 billion) poultry and egg industry.

Memories are still fresh of an outbreak of a different strain of bird flu in the Netherlands in 2003 that led to the culling of 30 million birds, more than a third of the flock.

Poultry producers in France have estimated a 30 percent fall in sales due to bird flu has cost them $154.7 million since November, Bussereau said.

No EU farm birds have yet been confirmed as positive for the virus but animal and human health experts, including at the WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, say it is almost inevitable that the virus will spread from wild birds to poultry flocks.

Spain, which has yet to confirm any H5N1 cases, said it would be particularly exposed to possible cases in migrating birds returning from wintering in Africa in the coming weeks.

Countries have set up protection and surveillance zones to try and halt the spread of the virus. In West Africa, reeling from the discovery of H5N1 in Nigeria this month, countries called for international aid to help pay for emergency action.

(Reporting by Kamil Zaheer in New Delhi, Michael Perry in Sydney, Michael Hogan in Hamburg, Paule Bonjean in Paris)