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Amid bird flu fears, EU tests health procedures

Posted on: Wednesday, 19 October 2005, 09:49 CDT

By Aine Gallagher

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union states tested communications procedures in case of a public health emergency on Wednesday but an EU health agency said it saw no chance of an imminent bird flu pandemic and advised Europeans not to panic.

The EU test followed the discovery on Monday of bird flu on a Greek Aegean island. Analysis continued on Wednesday on samples from an infected turkey to establish whether it was the H5N1 strain that can be fatal for humans.

Romania, where the presence of H5N1 in a Danube delta village was established last week, said further tests on dead birds from another village had proved positive. Russia said the virus may have spread westwards to a region south of Moscow.

The European Commission's health spokesman said the bloc's 25 member states had carried out an exercise "designed to test the security of communications of our European networks in case of a major public health emergency."

The test was a precursor to a fuller simulation of the EU's preparedness to handle a flu pandemic to be conducted by the end of the year, the spokesman, Philip Tod, told a briefing. He gave no details of what was done.

With H5N1, which has killed over 60 people in Asia since 2003, now confirmed in Russia, Turkey and Romania, the EU has sought to tread a fine line between showing it is prepared and avoiding a public panic.

The Commission has said risks of a human influenza pandemic are growing and advised member states to stockpile anti-viral drugs. Sixteen EU states have placed orders for them.

Tod said EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou would hold talks with the pharmaceutical industry about speeding up production of vaccines after he discusses the situation with EU health ministers in Britain on Thursday and Friday.

EU foreign ministers declared bird flu a "global threat" on Tuesday and urged greater international cooperation to combat the problem.

But on Wednesday, the bloc's Stockholm-based European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) sought to calm fears.

"For the time being there is no reason to panic in Europe," Zsuzsanna Jakab, head of the center, told a news conference. "The risk for citizens to have this virus is minimal."

NOT ADAPTED TO HUMANS

Scientists fear H5N1 could mutate into a variety that could spread easily between humans if it passes from birds to people on a large scale, but the ECDC saw this as unlikely.

"This virus is not yet adapted to humans, it is not capable of human-to-human transmission and until that happens this will not be a pandemic strain," Jakab said.

In Bucharest, Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur said a British laboratory had detected H5N1 in a swan and a hen found dead in the village of Maliuc. Last week, it was found in three ducks from a neighboring village, Ceamurlia de Jos.

Russia's Agriculture Ministry said preliminary tests had shown H5N1 material in several bird tissue specimens after 220 domestic fowl died last week in the Tula region.

Regional authorities had quarantined the village of Yandovka and ordered the culling of all 3,000 head of poultry there. The virus has previously been confirmed in 51 localities in Siberia, eastern Russia and the Urals.

The European Commission said further tests would be carried out in the coming week on samples from the Greek island of Inousses. Greece had agreed to maintain a ban on transport of live birds or poultry products from the area.

Croatia reported that bird flu tests it had carried out on dead birds had proved negative.

But, confirming the view of many scientists that bird flu is a far more serious problem in Asia than in Europe, where no human has so far contracted it, China said 2,600 birds at a poultry farm in Inner Mongolia had died from H5N1.

Xinhua news agency said the outbreak, for which it gave no date, had since been brought under control. The Health Ministry said it had not heard of any human infections.

The World Health Organization has said the strain is endemic in poultry in China and across much of Asia.

Swiss drugmaker Roche, manufacturer of the Tamiflu antiviral, said on Wednesday patents would not be an obstacle to getting the drug to the sick in case of a bird flu pandemic.

"Patents will not stand in the way of producing the drug for mankind," chief executive Franz Humer told Reuters in an interview.

"We will talk to anybody -- people who can manufacture the drug, and are able to manufacture it faster than us, and complement our manufacturing," he said.

Source: REUTERS

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