Brussels, 24/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 23 March, the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health updated a number of Community measures in France, Sweden and Israel to combat bird flu.
France: EU veterinary experts decided to bring forward by 4 days - to 27 March - the date until which the measures in the surveillance zone around the French poultry farm, in the Ain department (centre-east of the country), on which there was an outbreak of bird flu, must be applied. The change in date was due to the progress made in bringing the bird flu situation under control there. On 1st March, the French Agriculture Ministry announced that the protection and surveillance zone around sites where wild birds and a turkey farm were affected by the H5N1 strain of the virus was being extended to roughly 300 “communes” (small administrative units, sometimes comprising a number of villages) in the Dombes region.
Sweden: the Standing Committee supported a proposal to extend the protection and surveillance zone, set up to combat the spread of bird flu, to new localities in Sweden. This decision became necessary after the H5N1 strain was discovered in a farmed duck near Oskarshamm. The protection zone will now cover the entire Kalmar Län region.
France and Sweden are the only EU countries where the H5N1 strain has been found in poultry farms.
Israel: the EU has decided to update the decision taken on 17 March banning the import of live poultry and poultry meat from Israel, where several poultry farms have been contaminated by the H5N1 strain of the virus. The ban covers live poultry, poultry meat, eggs and poultry products. Heat-treated poultry products (which were not included in the 17 March decision) and products from poultry slaughtered before 15 February 2006 (deemed to be outside the incubation period of the virus) will still be allowed to be imported and sold within the EU. The outbreak last week of H5N1 on four poultry farms forced the Israeli authorities to order the slaughter of about one hundred thousand birds.