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EU on 'Full Alert,' Takes Steps to Curb Spread of H5 to Poultry

Posted on: Friday, 17 February 2006, 21:00 CST

BRUSSELS: A swan found in eastern France did not die of bird flu, officials said on Friday, but two dead ducks discovered close to a northern bird park were still being tested.

"(The swan) did not die of bird flu," a spokesman for the farm ministry said, giving no further details.

Local authorities said the swan had been found dead on a highway south of the southeastern city of Lyon and had been transferred to the local veterinary service for testing.

However, in Hungary, the swans that were confirmed as having died from the H5 virus in all likelihood have the N1 subtype responsible for human deaths, Hungary's National Animal Health Institute said on Friday.

"We have finished our examinations, and based on the results, it is very likely that the H5N1 virus is present," Lajos Tekes, the institute's director, told Inforadio.

In Russia, an outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus has been registered at a poultry farm in the southern Russian province of Dagestan - the second such case in the region this week, officials said.

"The H5N1 virus was found on a second poultry farm," a spokeswoman from the press service of Russia's consumer protection agency said.

As bird flu continues to spread in Europe, European Union veterinary experts agreed on Thursday on tough new measures to prevent outbreaks of bird flu in poultry farms across the bloc following earlier precautionary action taken against infected wild birds.

No cases of infected poultry have so far been notified in the 25- nation bloc although several countries have confirmed the presence of the deadly H5N1 virus in wild swans.

Commission officials said the bloc's governments were on "full alert" and working on the assumption that there was a high risk more bird flu cases would be found across the bloc.

Commission spokesman Philip Tod said it was also vital to assure European consumers and Europe's foreign trading partners that the EU was taking strong action to define a "disease-free" zone in case of suspected or confirmed cases of H5N1 on poultry farms.

Under the new measures, any cases of bird flu in poultry farms must be followed up immediately by the establishment of a huge "high risk area" or buffer zone to prevent spread of the disease to other parts of the country.

Officials said poultry farms in this area would be subject to very strict controls and birds would have to be kept inside.

The buffer zone could be very large and could cover a "department, a province or even an entire region," the officials added.

Such a high-risk area will be in addition to a three-kilometre- wide "protection zone" within which infected birds will have to be culled and movement of poultry will be banned except when birds are en route to a slaughterhouse.

An additional seven-kilometre-wide "surveillance zone" will also be set up around areas with outbreaks to prevent further spread of the disease.

Source: China Daily; North American ed.

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