Deadly bird flu spreads in France, import ban spreads
Bernama, 27 Feb 2006

AFP Photo Gulls fly during sunrise in the Bulgarian Black sea town of Varna. More wild birds found dead in eastern France were victims of the lethal strain of H5N1 bird flu, Agriculture Minister Dominique Bussereau said, as Hong Kong joined Japan in banning poultry imports from France.

PARIS (AFP) - More wild birds found dead in eastern France were victims of the lethal strain of H5N1 bird flu, Agriculture Minister Dominique Bussereau said, as Hong Kong joined Japan in banning poultry imports from France.
 
 While the European Union came to terms with the arrival of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain in its farm sector, in Asia, where bird flu was first identified, China warned of possible widespread outbreaks of the flu during the coming spring bird migratory season and announced two more human cases of the virus.

The deadly form of bird flu appeared to be taking hold in wild birds across Germany after more outbreaks in the north of the country and the first suspected cases in the region around the capital Berlin.

Switzerland recorded its first case of H5 bird flu -- in a type of wild duck found near Geneva's water fountain -- and tests were underway to determine if it was H5N1 that has broken out in the neighboring region of France.

Romania said Sunday that the H5N1 strain of the virus had been found in the southeast of the country -- the country's 35th outbreak -- but tests were continuing to determine whether it was the highly pathogenic variant.

Indian officials slaughtered hundreds of thousands of chickens and checked around 90,000 people for bird flu symptoms in the northwestern state of Gujarat as authorities ordered tests on dead birds in Assam in the northeast of the country.

Officials in northern Nigeria, where bird flu has been detected, sought to convince people to continue eating chicken and showed on television top officials feasting on poultry.

Poultry farming is one of the country's biggest industries and the authorities fear that if it collapses, hundreds of thousands of people will be left without an income, with the potential for serious social unrest.

Better news came from Malaysia where five people quarantined with suspected bird flu have tested negative, a top health official said Sunday.

"All five have tested negative," Ramlee Rahmat, director of the health ministry's disease control division, told AFP.

In France measures were intensified to reassure consumers and contain the spread of bird flu after the discovery of the deadly disease in commercial poultry dealt its farming sector a major blow.
 
 Authorities in the east of the country, where the outbreak was discovered on a turkey farm last Thursday, have tightened restrictions.
 
On Sunday, they ordered a 10-day ban on anybody approaching small lakes in the Dombes region after some 50 dead swans and ducks had been collected in the past four days.
 
The news that 15 of the swans were confirmed to have the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu deepened a sense of crisis despite the government's best efforts to head off panic.  

The discovery of the disease in commercial poultry was taking its toll on France's farm sector, dealing a tough economic blow to a country that is the fourth-biggest poultry exporter in the world, after Brazil, China and the United States.
 
 

Domestic consumption was already down 30 percent before the news, and immediately after confirmation Saturday that at least 400 turkeys on the farm had died of H5N1, Japan and Hong Kong placed embargos on French imports of poultry and poultry products -- including prized foie gras.
 
 France has 30,600 commercial poultry farms, which produce 700 million birds a year and represent annual revenues of six billion euros (seven billion dollars).
 
 About 65,000 people are employed in the sector, though owners have had to proceed with lay-offs in recent weeks because of the free-fall in demand.
 
 Experts fear that H5N1, which has killed more than 90 people, mostly in Asia, since 2003, may mutate into a form that can pass between humans, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.
 
 Human fatalities from the disease have been recorded in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Turkey and Vietnam.
 
 Eight EU countries have so far confirmed cases of the deadly H5N1 strain, but until Saturday when it was discovered in a turkey farm in eastern France, all these cases had been found in wild birds.
 
 So far the virus has not jumped from birds to humans in the EU.
 
 In Asia China warned of possible widespread outbreaks of avian influenza during the coming spring bird migratory season and the health ministry announced two more human cases of the virus.
 
 "At present we cannot rule out the possibility of widespread outbreaks of the bird flu in China," the Xinhua news agency quoted Agricultural Minister Du Qinglin as saying at a parliamentary meeting.
 
 "We must remain on a high-level alert in all areas and continue to earnestly step up prevention and control work."
 
 Du's remarks on Saturday came as the health ministry reported that a nine-year-old girl and a 26-year-old woman in eastern China had contracted bird flu and were both in critical condition.