EU bans Turkey bird imports as Turks battle avian flu

By Gamze Alarslan

MANYAS, Turkey (Reuters) – The European Commission
announced a ban on all imports of live birds and feathers from
Turkey into the 25-nation EU on Monday after Ankara confirmed
an outbreak of the highly contagious avian influenza.

But Turkish experts battling the disease played down fears
of the kind of epidemic caused by the H5N1 avian influenza
virus that has killed millions of birds and 65 people in Asia
since 2003. The H5N1 virus is the most deadly of a number of
known versions of bird flu.

The Commission said it was taking no steps at the moment
over a suspected outbreak of bird flu in Romania.

Results of bird flu tests in Romania and Turkey should be
known by Wednesday, October 12, and the Commission would act
immediately in accordance with those findings, it said.

“The virological analyses have confirmed that the virus is
present (in Turkey) but at the moment we are not able to say
what type of virus we are talking about — how pathogenic it
is,” said Philip Tod, the Commission’s health spokesman.

Turkey has so far culled about 3,000 turkeys and chickens
after reporting its first outbreak of avian flu at a farm in
the district of Manyas, which is near the Aegean and Marmara
Seas.

It has clamped a 3-km (2 mile) quarantine zone around the
farm, where 1,870 turkeys died of the disease last week. Teams
of veterinary experts in white overalls and gloves are
hurriedly burying the slaughtered birds in lime-drenched pits.

“The precautionary measures are continuing but this
outbreak of disease is not an epidemic. It is not spreading at
the moment,” veterinary surgeon Arif Zorlu told Reuters.

“To prevent any spread, our technical team in the area is
killing poultry and we will continue doing so for 21 days to
avert the possibility of an epidemic,” he said, adding that the
slaughtered birds had not shown any symptoms of illness.

In a statement urging public calm and vigilance, Turkey’s
farm ministry said: “Everything is under control.”

ROMANIAN DEATHS

Romania was also conducting a widespread cull after it
detected an outbreak in the Danube delta.

Private television station Realitatea TV reported dozens of
birds, including swans and poultry, had been found dead in the
village of Maliuc in the delta on Monday.

Quarantines were imposed on seven affected Romanian
villages, hunting was banned in the delta and the agriculture
minister said the country would cull around 45,000 birds.

He said scientists there had ruled out avian flu in some of
the stricken birds found and were trying to isolate the virus
in others to discover which strain they were infected with.

Bulgaria, sandwiched between Turkey and Romania, announced
a ban on imports of poultry and poultry products from its Black
Sea neighbors on Monday. Ukraine, which shares a border with
Romania, followed suit.

Non-EU member Switzerland also banned poultry imports from
Turkey and Romania. Earlier, Hungary announced a ban on
Romanian poultry imports and Greece banned imports from Romania
and Turkey. Bulgaria, Greece and Hungary beefed up border
checks.

Turkey’s Poultry Producers and Breeders Association said
samples of the dead birds had been sent to a specialist
laboratory in Britain to identify the strain of the virus. It
said the results should be known within a week.

Britain said on Sunday it was in touch with the Turkish
authorities to see what assistance was needed, and said it was
sending a team to Romania on Monday to help there.

The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed millions of birds
across Asia and infected 116 people, killing more than 60 of
them. Scientists fear the virus, known to pass to humans from
birds, could mutate and be passed among humans.

“BIG BLOW”

Turkey’s Health Ministry on Sunday denied any link between
the outbreak at Manyas and the Asian epidemic.

“This is a big blow to Turkey’s poultry exports and could
also hurt domestic sales,” said Yuce Canoler of the Turkish
Poultry Producers and Breeders Association.

A Turkish ornithologist told Reuters it was “99 percent
certain” that the Manyas outbreak was caused by migrating
birds.

“Manyas is an important destination for migrating birds. I
think the bird flu came by this route, so migration has to be
closely monitored in Turkey,” said Mehmet Deli.

Romania’s Danube delta contains Europe’s largest wetlands
and is also a major migratory area for wild birds coming from
Russia, Scandinavia, Poland and Germany.

Romanian ornithologists said they expected hundreds of
thousands of migratory birds to arrive in the next two months.

(Additional reporting by Jeremy Smith in Brussels, Mustafa
Yukselbaba in Ankara, Ercan Ersoy in Istanbul, Kremena Miteva
in Sofia, Andras Gergely in Budapest, Radu Marinas in
Bucharest)