French minister: EU must co-ordinate bird-flu response
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy today said the European Union should co-ordinate its bird flu response measures to better protect itself.
Douste-Blazy said he would like to see a meeting of EU health and foreign ministers “within a rather short time so that we can harmonise our reaction”.
“The H5N1 virus is in the process of scattering and is reaching our doorstep,” Douste-Blazy said.
The H5N1 strain of bird flu – a virulent strain that experts fear could mutate and become a dangerous human virus – has killed 60 people in Asia since 2003.
H5N1 has not been confirmed in Europe, but Turkey last weekend reported preliminary findings of bird flu in domestic fowl and Romania said it suspected the virus in the deaths of dozens of birds.
Experts were conducting tests on samples from the dead birds.
The EU yesterday banned imports of live birds and feathers from Turkey. Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Poland, Ukraine and Serbia-Montenegro also banned poultry imports from Turkey and Romania.
In addition, the EU sent experts to Romania and Turkey to help with testing samples for bird flu.
“We need to take a certain number of measures,” the French minister said.
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