New wave of bird flu, and fears, hits Europe

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/15/news/flu.php

New wave of bird flu, and fears, hits Europe
By Elisabeth Rosenthal International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2006
With new reports of dead wild swans cropping up Wednesday from Denmark to Italy, officials in countries across Europe strengthened measures to ensure that the H5N1 virus did not spread from migrating birds to domestic poultry.

At the same time, the officials tried to damp down panic among consumers in many countries, reassuring them that it was safe to eat chickens. In the past three days poultry sales in Italy have dropped by more than 50 percent.

"What we are seeing is that the surveillance system in Europe is very, very good, since we're picking up disease in migrating swans," said Juan Lubroth, senior veterinary official at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. "If anything, this should increase people's confidence in their food. We're seeing it in migrating swans, not in chickens."

H5N1 was confirmed in a type of migratory swans in Greece, Bulgaria and Italy on Saturday, and in Germany on Wednesday. Probable cases were detected in the same species in Slovenia and Croatia on Sunday, in Austria on Monday and in Denmark on Tuesday.

The reports of swans infected by H5N1 have trickled in from a huge swath of Europe over the last several days, challenging experts' views on patterns of bird migration. Extremely cold weather in the past month in Russia may have driven birds further west into Europe, the experts said.

A number of countries, including some that had not yet reported any disease, mandated on Wednesday that all domestic poultry be kept indoors to prevent any contact with migrating birds.

For example, Agriculture Minister Dominique Bussereau of France said that all birds in France "must be confined," after a ministerial meeting.

Experts had not expected to see bird flu arriving in Europe until this spring at the earliest, carried by birds moving back from Africa to Europe and Asia.

The cases in Germany and Denmark were "unexpected," Lubroth said since the assumption was that bird migration had largely ended at this time of year and would not be seen in such northern regions. He and others stressed, however, that very little is known about how and where specific species migrate with the seasons, beyond broad patterns.

"We will probably learn a lot about bird migration by discovering where the H5N1 virus crops up," said John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary Hospital in London.

Kath Harris, a spokesperson for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in England, said that many scientists believed that usual migration routes had shifted due to extremely cold weather in Russia and Ukraine over the past month.

The type of swans that has succumbed to H5N1 in recent days normally flies from these countries to the Black Sea in a migration that usually ends in December, she said.

"But it appears that their flight paths have shifted farther west and it is still going on, probably because of cold weather," she said.

No domesticated poultry have so far tested positive for H5N1 in European countries where the dead swans have been found, though officials are conducting intensive checks at nearby poultry farms. There have been no reports of human disease.

While the H5N1 virus does not readily infect humans and is not known to spread from person to person, scientists have worried that the virus might one day acquire that ability through naturally occurring processes, setting off a worldwide pandemic.

So far only about 160 people have become infected with bird flu, after close contact with infected birds.

For the moment, the far greater problem for Europe is that an outbreak of H5N1 can rapidly decimate a national poultry industry. The virus, which is both highly contagious and lethal to birds, often kills tens of thousands of poultry at a time; all birds in a wide surrounding region must be culled preventively to prevent spread of the virus.

The countries that ordered domestic birds to be kept indoors acted because the virus can survive in bird feces and in lake water for several days. Several countries - including Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands - had such bans in place for farms last autumn, but lifted them last month when migrating season was presumed to be over.

The European Union announced Wednesday that its Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health would be reviewing the situation in meetings on Wednesday and Thursday. In the meantime, the commission outlined special measures to be taken in regions where bird flu was confirmed or suspected in swans.

In a protected zone measuring 3 kilometers, or 1.8 miles, from any site where dead swans are found, poultry had to be kept indoors and could not be transported, except to slaughterhouses. In addition, in a 10 kilometer-wide surveillance zone, birds would be checked for signs of disease and hunting would be banned.

Despite such reassurances, the wholesale price of chicken in Italy fell over the weekend from just under El, or $1.19, a kilogram to about 75 euro cents on Wednesday, the Italian media reported. The bird flu virus is killed by cooking, and so there is no danger from eating well-cooked meat or eggs, even from an infected bird.