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France confirms EU's first bird flu outbreak
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-25 13:57
The European Union's first outbreak of lethal H5N1 bird flu in commercial
poultry was confirmed Saturday in France, the EU's largest poultry producer.
Three trucks carry
the turkeys that were found to have the H5 virus, to be incinerated, in
Versailleux, eastern France, Friday, Feb. 24, 2006. France has detected
cases of bird flu on a turkey farm, but it was not immediately clear
whether it was the deadly strain, the agriculture minister said Friday.
[AP] |
France's farming ministry said lab tests confirmed H5N1 in turkeys at a farm
in the southeast Ain region, where thousands of the birds were found dead
Thursday. The farm, which had more than 11,000 turkeys, has been sealed off and
surviving birds slaughtered.
The spread of bird flu to commercial stocks in France, which has been working
for months to prevent and prepare for an outbreak, served as a sobering sign for
other developed countries that consider themselves well protected against the
virus.
In an indication of the global impact of the French case, Japan had already
on Friday temporarily suspended imports of French poultry, including the
delicacy foie gras, meat and other internal organs, according to the Japanese
Embassy in Paris. In 2005, Japan imported 1,510 metric tons of duck and other
poultry meat and 377 metric tons of internal organs, including foie gras, from
France.
France has some 200,000 farms that raise 900 million birds each year. In
2004, the latest year for which figures were available, the French poultry
sector generated more than $3.6 billion in revenues, or more than 20 percent of
total EU production. Consumers' fears of bird flu have already hit French
poultry sales, and the industry could be hobbled if the virus spreads.
Scientists fear the H5N1 strain, which has spread from Asia to 10 European
countries and Africa, could mutate into a form that is easily transmitted
between humans, sparking a pandemic.
No human cases of bird flu have been reported in France or elsewhere in the
EU. The disease has killed at least 92 people elsewhere. Before the outbreak in
turkeys, the only confirmed French cases of H5N1 in birds were in two dead wild
ducks found near the farm in the southeastern town of Versailleux.
Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, speaking Friday at a bird flu
preparedness exercise in the southeastern city of Lyon, said that France was
"one of the best-prepared countries" for a possible flu pandemic. The exercise
tested how police and medical teams would respond to the potential arrival of
flu-stricken passengers at an airport.
The family of the turkey farmer was temporarily quarantined in a nearby
hospital so doctors could monitor their health, officials said. Vehicles passing
through a protection zone in the area were required to ride through a 100-foot
long trough of disinfectant.
The government ordered all domestic birds indoors or, in a few regions,
vaccinated. Protection zones were set up around the site where the first duck
was found, in the town of Joyeux. Police began checks of vehicles to ensure that
no captive birds leave the region.
The outbreak could have been caused by droppings from migratory wild ducks on
piles of straw used in turkey pens that had been stored outside, France's
Poultry Industry Association said in a statement.
Meanwhile, tests confirmed Slovakia's first cases of H5N1 in wild birds,
officials said Friday.
The strain was detected in a white grebe found in the capital, Bratislava,
and in a peregrine falcon found at the border with Hungary.
German authorities said Friday that the deadly strain has been found in wild
birds in two more German states.
In Vienna, Austria, EU health ministers said they would launch a public
awareness campaign to ease growing fears over health and food
safety.
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