UN rekindles bird flu migration fears in Europe

By Robin Pomeroy

ROME (Reuters) – Migrating birds pose a serious risk of
spreading avian flu around the world, including into western
Europe, the United Nations food agency said on Wednesday,
rekindling fears that European experts moved to quash last
week.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) told a news
conference that parts of eastern Europe, Africa and south Asia
were at risk of being infected by the virus in the near term.
Western Europe could face such a risk next year, it said.

“Now that the winter is coming the risk is expanding rather
fast into areas of eastern Europe, the Middle East and North
Africa,” said Samuel Jutzi, head of animal protection and
health at the Rome-based FAO.

Bird flu has killed more than 60 people in south-east Asia
and forced the slaughter of millions of fowl since the outbreak
began in 2003. The H5N1 strain, which is potentially dangerous
to humans, has been found in six Russian regions and
Kazakhstan, causing the deaths of nearly 14,000 fowl.

“There’s no reason whatever to believe that this geographic
expansion will finish in Kazakhstan,” Jutzi said. South Asia
was also a region at risk, he added.

The spread into central Asia and toward eastern Europe has
fueled fears about the mobility of the highly pathogenic H5N1
strain of bird flu. The World Health Organization has warned
the virus could trigger a deadly global pandemic if it mutates
to become easily passed from one human to another.

At present humans usually contract the illness from close
contact with an infected bird.

“The risk of a human pandemic can be drastically reduced,
if not avoided, by action if countries and international
organisations are decisive enough in fighting the virus at its
source — in the animals,” Jutzi said.

URGENT ACTION

Some 50 countries, including France, have so far set up
national plans to prevent the spread of the H5N1 strain.

French President Jacques Chirac called on Wednesday for
urgent coordinated action to combat the spread of bird flu and
offered technical assistance to other countries in their fight
against the deadly virus.

On Tuesday Poland called on the European Union to help
Russia stop the spread of the virus.

“Poland wants the EU to talk with Russia about how the
whole EU can help Russia – including financial assistance – to
prevent the spread of bird flu on its territory,” Polish
Interior Minister Ryszard Kalisz told a news conference.

Finnish officials said a low-pathogenic strain of bird flu
virus had been found in three seagulls discovered dead, but
that the birds had died of starvation, not the disease itself.

Tests were being carried out to determine the exact strain
of the virus the birds carried, but the National Veterinary and
Food Research Institute (EELA) ruled out the pathogenic version
that has killed people in Asia.

Iran banned imports of all animal feed from countries which
have reported cases of bird flu, a senior trade official told
Reuters on Wednesday.

Analysts said the bird flu ban would particularly affect
the Caspian Sea grains trade and a Russian grains analyst said
it had already pushed down grain prices in Russia.

A group of EU veterinary experts last week dismissed the
idea that birds returning from winter migration posed a serious
risk to the region.

They agreed that migratory birds could bring the virus to
eastern European countries like Romania and Bulgaria, but not
into the EU. “The immediate risk is probably remote or low,”
they said in a statement.

“I don’t think there is a contradiction,” Jutzi told
Reuters. “We agree that the risk of migratory birds posing a
risk to central Europe is currently low.”

He said the FAO had a “slight difference” of opinion in
that, unlike the EU vets, it believed returning birds could
bring the virus to western Europe, by as early as next spring.

But Poland’s deputy chief veterinarian Janusz Zwiazek said
that based on migratory patterns he believed wild birds could
bring the disease to Poland in as little as two weeks’ time.

Poorer countries may lack the expertise or resources to be
so rigorous and may require financial help, the FAO said. The
FAO has already asked for $100 million to support control
measures in south-east Asia, but has only received $25 million.

“Therefore we can assume the risk of a human pandemic has
been increased by the negligence of the international
community.”