Bird flu spreads westwards, nations mobilise

FRANCE: Lethal bird flu continued its advance across Europe with more infected birds found in Germany and Italy, while in India seven people were under observation with symptoms of the disease.

The H5N1 strain of the flu which can be potentially fatal to humans was detected for the first time on the German mainland in the northeast state of Mecklenburg-Pomerania, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 61, animal health experts said.

In Italy, the Institute of Animal Health in the north eastern city of Padua announced the virus had been detected in a total of 16 birds in the country.

H5N1 was also confirmed in Tuzla and Navodari on the shores of the Black Sea in Romania, bringing to 33 the number of sites where it has been found nationwide, a veterinary official said.

Samples from the latest Romanian cases were sent to the European Union reference laboratory in Weybridge, Britain, to establish whether it was the highly pathogenic form of the H5N1 virus.

French authorities vowed to spare no effort in containing avian influenza after the country became the sixth in the European Union, and the most westerly, to be hit by the virus.

Europe's top producer and the world's fourth-largest exporter of poultry, France confirmed late Saturday that H5N1 had been identified in a wild duck found dead in the central-eastern Ain department.

French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand stressed that the dead duck was an isolated case, although food authorities said tests were continuing on some 15 birds found dead in various parts of the country.

"There will be no financial or economic obstacle in preparing France in the face of these risks," he said on Europe 1 radio, as the country's main farmers' union called for more state help in tackling the threat.

The plight of EU poultry producers, faced with plummetting sales, will be discussed by agriculture ministers Monday. Sales are down by 70 percent in Italy, 40 to 50 percent in Greece and 15 percent in France. But in Brussels officials held out little hope in the short term.

"We're sympathetic but there is very little we, from the European budget, can actually do," a European Commission spokesman said.

The other EU member states so far to have detected the H5N1 virus are Austria, Greece, and Slovenia. There have also been cases in Bulgaria, Croatia, Ukraine and Russia.

Germany has begun enforcing an order to keep all poultry indoors, joining the Netherlands, Slovenia, Denmark, France, Greece, Luxembourg and Sweden in doing so. PARIS, Monday AFP