Brussels, 17/02/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 15 and 16 February, the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health took further measures in case bird flu affects poultry farms (EUROPE 9132), whilst the scale of the outbreak detected in Germany among wild birds is an incentive to redouble all vigilance. The European Medicines Agency has drawn up a guideline document to authorise the emergency use of vaccines on birds to fight the bird flu viruses H5 and/or H7, and has undertaken to speed up authorisation procedures.
On 17 February, the Netherlands announced that they would apply to the Commission for authorisation to vaccinate poultry raised out of doors against the bird flu virus. In Germany, the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus of bird flu was identified on 16 February in nine swans and one goose in Rügen (an island in the Baltic Sea), bringing the number of confirmed cases to thirteen. In Austria, a third case of infection by the highly pathogenic strain of bird flu has been recorded in Styria, a Land adjacent to Slovenia, where the first case of H5N1 was confirmed in the Maribor region (North-East). On 16 February, Greece confirmed to further cases of infected wild swans, bringing the number of reported cases of H5N1 to five. On 17 February, three swans carrying the H5 virus were discovered in the department of Rhodope and in Chalcidiki (700 km and 560 km from Athens respectively). Greece has been in a state of emergency since 11 February. Two further cases of H5N1 have been reported in Italy. In Hungary, two cases of birds infected by the H5 virus are being analysed to determine whether it is the H5N1 strain.
Romania, which has been the bird flu's way into Europe since the first case of H5N1 was detected in the Danube Delta on 7 October, is the most severely affected country of the whole continent, with 31 declared cases and losses estimated at over a billion EUR. At the end of January, Bulgaria discovered the H5N1 virus in a swan which was found dead in the Danube near to Vidin (north-west). Confirmed cases of H5N1 have been reported in Croatia (3), Ukraine (22) and in Russia (5).
Poultry containment has been in force throughout Germany since 17 February, 12 days before the deadline. The measure will be applied until the end of April. This measure has also been taken by France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Slovenia and Finland. Containment will enter into force on Luxembourg on 20 February, and will be ordered for no later than March in Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Norway and Switzerland have also ordered that all of their poultry be kept indoors. Despite the multiple outbreak of cases among wild birds, the experts feel that it should be left up to the Member States (called upon by the Commission constantly to re-assess the risk) to decide on general containment throughout their territory. "We are extremely reluctant to change this approach, because we do not believe that it would be fair to apply similar measures from the Canary Isles to Laponia", said a European source, quoted by AFP.
At the moment in the EU, bird flu has affected wild birds only. If it was found in poultry, all of the birds and eggs from the farm in question would immediately have to be destroyed, according to a decision by the veterinary experts. New measures provide for the implementation of a protection zone for radius of 3 km around the site on which the deceased bird was found, and a monitoring zone of a radius of 7 further km. Within this total radius of 10 km, all poultry would be confined inside, markets for live poultry banned and disinfection measures imposed for all farms. This would be completed by the creation of a "buffer zone" of variable size, between the region where the disease animals were detected and the rest of the country in question.
The necessary efforts to avoid an outbreak of bird flu in Africa, further to the discovery of the virus in Nigeria, "could be greater than those made in South-East Asia, and even colossal", warned the director of the International Office of Epizootics (IOE). In Nigeria, according to IOE boss Bernard Vallat, in an interview with the Figaro of 17 February, "it has taken far too long to raise the alarm". Since the presence of H5N1 was officially announced in Nigeria on 8 February, tens of thousands of birds have died or been slaughtered, incinerated and buried, mainly in the north of the country. "Even though we do not yet have definite proof, we favour the theory that the virus was originally introduced into the country by migratory birds", said Mr Vallat.