Brussels, 31/08/2005 (Agence Europe) -Although it agrees with its EU partners that the risk of bird flu- which has progressed from Southeast Asia to Russia and Kazakhstan-reaching Europe is "low at the time being", France decided on Tuesday to step up its preventive measures against the virus.
According to the press release published after the meeting of the 10 or so ministers involved: -reserves of anti-viral drugs, vaccines and means of individual protection for the population "will be brought to the levels required to assure the safety of all French citizens in case of pandemic" (amongst other measures, reserves of protection masks will be increased to a level of 200 million units at the beginning of 2006); -sanitary control provisions will be reinforced in major airports handling international flights; - together with its EU partners, France will seek to coordinate prevention and reaction plans to the threat of pandemic (promoting international concertation, particularly under the aegis of the WHO, in order to harmonise sanitary control and prevention measures, to promote the development of production capacities for drugs and vaccines and to arrange help for countries hit by the virus). These preventive measures against the threat of bird flu come on top of those taken by France on 25 August (EUROPE 9013).