Europe on bird flu watch after Germany confirms first cases (Roundup)

Feb 15, 2006, 15:54 GMT

Germany began an all-out offensive Wednesday to control the spread of bird flu after the disease was confirmed in dead swans on an island in the Baltic Sea, while Austria and Hungary said tests on dead swans in those countries had revealed the presence of the virus.

The outbreak on the German island of Ruegen prompted neighbouring states Denmark, Norway and Sweden to order poultry indoors Wednesday, as Poland and Denmark conducted tests on dead swans found on their Baltic Sea coasts and Russia confirmed another bird flu case within its borders.

While the virus on Ruegen had yet to be confirmed by the European Union laboratory near London, German laboratories said they were convinced the birds were carrying the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain.

'Personally as experts, we have no doubt about it whatever,' Reinhard Kurth, president of Germany's top medical research facility, the Robert Koch Institute, said in Berlin.

Germany ordered all domestic fowl in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania indoors. State authorities also prohibited the sale of live poultry in markets or from vendor trucks. A ban on keeping poultry outdoors was to come into force in the rest of Germany on Friday.

Holidaymakers in the Baltic Sea first reported seeing four dead swans Tuesday on Ruegen. About eight more dead swans were found Wednesday at the same location.

German scientists were mystified over how the birds - said by ornithologists to be non-migrating mute swans - actually caught the virus.

German plans for the development of a human vaccine against bird flu were stepped up in the light of Wednesday's discovery.

A spokesman for the health ministry in Berlin said the government had authorized a grant of 20 million euros (24 million dollars) to two companies that would develop a vaccine in the event of a human pandemic.

In Austria, veterinary authorities in the south-eastern province of Styria said tests had revealed the H5N1 virus in three swans found since Tuesday reservoir in Mellach near Graz - information that has not yet been confirmed by EU tests.

Hungary's Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said bird flu had been confirmed as the cause of death for three migratory swans discovered in its southern region, but it was not known if it was the H5N1 type. Samples from the birds have been sent to the EU laboratory in England.

Germany, Austria and Hungary were all setting up protection and surveillance zones around the area where the birds were discovered, in line with EU guidelines.

Authorities in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan on Wednesday confirmed the discovery of another case of bird flu within Russia.

Tests on several dead chickens found on a poultry farm in the republic revealed they were carrying the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has already been discovered in several of southern Russia.

Meanwhile, in Denmark, authorities were to test dead swans found earlier at various locations, including the Danish Baltic Sea island of Bornholm, 100 kilometres north of Ruegen, where the German swans were found.

Sweden, Denmark and Norway all recommended that free-range birds be kept indoors in order to reduce the risk of bird flu being transmitted from wild fowl to poultry, while Finnish authorities said they were considering a similar recommendation.

Poland was conducting tests on three dead swans found on its northern Baltic Sea coast, with results expected within two days, local television reported.

The Czech Republic also ordered poultry meat farmers to confine all birds indoors after midnight Thursday, although no cases have been discovered in that country as yet.

Last week, the European Commission confirmed the presence of the H5N1 bird flu virus in dead swans in Greece, Italy and Bulgaria and said it was also very likely present in Slovenia.

In Italy, where the virus was detected on Saturday in dead swans in the south of the country, the poultry industry said Wednesday 30,000 jobs and 600 million euros (715 million dollars) had been lost a result of the scare.

Rita Pasquarelli of the producers' guild UNA told newspapers more job losses were expected in the coming weeks as consumer fears of bird flu caused poultry sales to plunge 50 per cent. Italy's poultry industry employs some 200,000 people.

Also on Wednesday, the European Commission said it had banned the import of untreated feathers from all non-European Union countries until July 2006 in a bid to curb further outbreaks of bird flu, while announcing aid of 1.9 billion euros (2.3 billion dollars) towards bird flu prevention.

EU experts on Thursday will decide if precautionary measures such as the culling and destroying of infected birds as well as setting up protection zones will also have to be applied to cases of bird flu in commercial poultry.

For the moment such measures only apply to wild birds.

The fund will cover 50 per cent of the costs of national surveillance programmes.

Avian flu has now killed birds in more than 20 countries and infected at least 166 people, killing 91 of them.

At present the disease is only contracted through contact with infected animals, but experts fear it could mutate into a strain directly transmissible between humans.