EU prepares bird-flu response
The EU was readying precautionary measures tonight, including the stockpiling of more anti-viral drugs, amid confirmation that the bird flu virus found in Turkish poultry was the H5N1 strain that scientists worry might mutate and cause a pandemic in humans.
An EU laboratory confirmed the virus found in Turkish poultry was the strain linked to the deaths of 60 people in Asia, EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said.
“There is a direct relationship with viruses found in Russia, Mongolia and China,” Kyprianou said.
EU experts, meanwhile, were awaiting results of other tests from samples taken from dead birds in Romania, to see if they too were of the same virulent H5N1 strain.
Tests late on Wednesday in Romania came back positive for bird flu, and scientists have narrowed the strain to an H5 type virus.
The confirmation set off a slew of emergency talks of EU veterinary experts, tasked with reviewing preventative measures to ensure the strain does not enter the 25-nation bloc.
“This is the first time it has come so close to Europe,” said Debby Reynolds, Britain’s chief veterinary officer for the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs. The agency oversees the lab that tested the samples.
Kyprianou sought to calm fears of an imminent human pandemic spreading across Europe, saying that his office was moving quickly to try and co-ordinate new precautionary measures.
The bird virus would have to mutate into a form that passes easily between people for a pandemic to occur and there is no evidence that it has done so.
“We don’t want to create a panic at this point,” he said.
The European Commission was proposing to set aside €1bn to help make and distribute anti-virals and vaccines “in case of a pandemic,” Kyprianou said.
He advised EU countries to administer the standard flu vaccine to vulnerable populations: people over age 65, young children and those with weakened immune systems or chronic respiratory conditions and also those living near the outbreak sites.
Kyprianou urged EU nations to work with pharmaceutical companies to stockpile antivirus drugs, saying: “It’s the first line of defence.”
EU health ministers will hold urgent talks in Britain next week. Kyprianou said they would discuss management of anti-viral stockpiles and other precautionary steps.
The EU head office is proposing possible travel warnings and a ban on hunting and ordering farmed poultry kept indoors.
The H5N1 bird flu strain does not easily infect humans, but 117 people in Asia, mostly poultry workers, have caught it over the last two years and 60 of them have died.
The fact that H5N1 has shown up so far west is worrying because the more the virus spreads among birds, the more opportunities it has to mutate.
The virus does not have to be inside a human to genetically mutate into a form that is dangerous to people. Some experts believe it may only take one genetic mutation to change the virus from a bird one to a human one.
“We are talking about the mutation of any existing strain of the flu virus into a completely new strain where we have no defences, where there are no natural antibodies or medicine,” Kyprianou said.
Public health authorities want the poultry outbreaks wiped out as rapidly as possible to prevent those opportunities for mutations.
The EU banned the import of live birds, poultry meat and feathers from Romania for at least six months. A similar ban was imposed earlier this week on Turkey. Customs and health checks were stepped up in the nearby Balkans.
European migratory birds experts were to meet tomorrow to discuss controlling wild flocks.
Turkey has culled 7,600 birds and disinfected five hectares of land, officials said.
Officials said Turkey was prepared. “The measures we have already taken were in line with the worst-case scenario,” said Faruk Demirel, spokesman for Turkey’s Agriculture Ministry.
Romania also has been culling bird populations in the east, near the Black Sea.
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