EU nations 'prepared for avian flu pandemic'
All European Union countries have plans to fight a possible bird flu pandemic, health officials said today, as tests confirmed the deadly strain of the virus had reached Croatia.
World Health Organisation and EU experts have been meeting in Copenhagen since Monday to analyse the threat of the bird flu virus mutating into a type that can be spread easily to and between humans.
All 25 EU countries have preparedness plans, but three countries that are part of the World Health Organisation’s European region – Turkmenistan, Moldova and Macedonia – have not drafted any strategies, said Marc Danzon, head of WHO Europe.
San Marino, Monaco and Russia, which has reported bird cases with deadly H5N1 virus strain, have not responded to the agency, he said.
“Addressing this must be a priority,” Danzon told reporters at the end of the meeting. “We will push those who have not responded yet, and we will support the three others to make plans.”
He said the chances of bird flu mutating into a human pandemic virus “are much higher in Asia, where it is more widespread than in Europe, which only has small pockets of the virus.”
The EU Commission announced Wednesday that the H5N1 virus strain, which has killed at least 62 people in Asia, was found in dead swans in Croatia.
It was detected earlier in birds in Romania, Russia and Turkey, raising fears it could spread to the rest of Europe.
The EU said it would ban exotic bird imports and impose stricter rules on the private ownership of parrots and other pet birds.
Over the weekend, a parrot imported from Suriname died in quarantine in Britain after contracting the H5N1 strain. It was believed to have been infected by other birds in quarantine. Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett said today the virus most likely came through Taiwan.
German authorities today ordered that all poultry be given only tap water to drink in addition to being kept indoors in efforts to prevent their coming into contact with infected migratory wild birds.
Officials said preliminary tests on wild geese found dead there had come back positive for bird flu – though they had died of poisoning – and further tests were being carried out to see if they carried H5N1.
Slovenia, Hungary and France were also testing birds found dead for signs of bird flu, underscoring the sensitivity of the issue even though officials have urged Europeans not to panic.
EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said the Copenhagen meeting made clear that the bloc was prepared to contain a possible pandemic.
“We have made progress in recent months, which is not to say that we can rest on our laurels, as there is more progress to be made,” he said in a statement.
EU Commission official Massimo Ciotti told reporters in Copenhagen there would be an EU-wide test of countries’ preparedness. He declined to give details, saying only that it would be a two-day drill.
Shigeru Omi, the WHO’s director for the Western Pacific region, said “prompt, transparent and decisive action” was the key to fighting the disease.
“It is possible that European countries can bring this under control,” Omi said.
EU authorities downplayed the risk of people contracting the disease through food, but the bloc’s food agency said poultry and eggs should be thoroughly cooked to eliminate the possibility.
“Whilst it is unlikely that H5N1 could be passed on to humans by raw meat or eggs, cooking food properly would inactivate the virus and eliminate this potential risk,” the European Food Safety Authority, based in Parma, Italy, said in a statement.
The virus is hard for humans to contract, and most of the 62 people in Asia who have died from the disease since 2003 were poultry farmers directly infected by sick birds.
China announced its third bird flu outbreak in two weeks today, prompting a UN official to say that not enough was being done to contain the illness.
“If there are frequent outbreaks, that means some measures are not being taken,” said Noureddin Mona, the Beijing representative for the Food and Agriculture Organisation. “The repeated outbreaks really is a signal of seriousness and the inability of the surveillance system.”
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