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Europe grapples with bird flu issue
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-15 11:26
Senior veterinary officials from around the European Union agreed Friday on
new measures aimed at preventing a lethal strain of bird flu from entering the
bloc, a day after it was confirmed on the continent's doorstep in Turkey.
Romanian health
workers throw bags of dead domestic birds into a pit before burning them
in the eastern village of Ceamurlia de Jos, Romania, Friday, Oct. 14 2005.
The European Union pledged financial aid to help Romania fight against the
spread of bird flu, an EU official said Friday, after birds on the Danube
Delta tested positive this week for a virus subtype.
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The officials also moved to calm fears on a continent with vivid memories of
mad cow disease, saying there was no reason to avoid cooked chicken because bird
flu is killed in seconds when the meat is cooked.
The new measures, agreed upon after two days of emergency talks, focus on
infection-control measures on farms and expanding early detection systems to
high risk areas, such as wetlands frequented by wild birds, said a statement
issued late Friday by the EU.
The EU has banned poultry imports from Turkey and Romania, where bird flu was
also detected this week. Officials in the two countries destroyed more fowl on
Friday.
In Turkey, Betul Demirel of Seker Pilic poultry company said the sector had
come "close to a standstill" after people stopped eating poultry products.
"There is an 80 percent decrease in sales," since the outbreak began, she said.
Turkish veterinary officials in protective plastic suits, masks and goggles
were trying to catch the remaining birds in the village of Kiziksa, where the
virus was detected, and to persuade villagers who were hiding their chickens to
surrender the birds.
Officials carried out medical tests on nine people in a neighborhood where 40
pigeons reportedly died, but released them from medical observation Friday after
determining they did not likely have bird flu.
EU health officials assured Europeans it was safe to eat poultry and that
human infection with bird flu was rare. It was too early to determine whether
there had been an impact on poultry consumption across the continent.
Preliminary tests found bird flu in a duck and a chicken from Romania, but
definitive test results on whether it is the virulent H5N1 strain are not
expected until Saturday at the earliest. The lethal strain, blamed for the
deaths of 60 people in Asia, was confirmed in Turkey on Thursday.
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