January 13, 2006

 

Neighbouring countries tighten measures as bird flu spreads in Turkey

 

Bird flu is spreading to 11 cities across Turkey and a third child has died from the disease on Thursday. Two more cases of human infections were confirmed, bringing the total number to 18.

 

Under World Health Organization supervision, Turkish officials distributed the avian flu vaccine Tamiflu, supervised poultry culls and waged an all-out media campaign throughout the country.

 

Bird flu has been confirmed in 11 cities and a dozen others may also have been affected, according to the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs. These were mainly cities in the central, southern, and eastern parts of Turkey. 355,000 birds have been culled since the outbreak.

However, WHO's regional director for Europe Dr Marc Danzon said there was no reason to panic over bird flu in Turkey, adding that the management of the crisis has been satisfactory so far.

 

Still, Turkey's neighbour Iran is taking no chances. It is destroying all poultry in an area along its border with Turkey to create a buffer to stop bird flu from entering the country.

 

All poultry within 15 kilometres of the Iranian-Turkish border will be culled, according to a local veterinary official. Iran shares a 486-kilometre border with Turkey and more than 50,000 birds will be culled and farmers compensated.

 

Iran, which has yet to report a case of bird flu, has banned poultry imports from Turkey and urged its citizens not to travel there.

 

In Europe, the Dutch government is planning to vaccinate its poultry population against bird flu in light of the situation in Turkey, the Dutch farm ministry said on Thursday.

 

Vaccination in the small but densely populated Netherlands is recommended by veterinary experts, because the risk is seen as higher than the rest of the European Union.

 

The land-scarce country is home to 16 million people and 90 million poultry. It is Europe's second largest poultry producer, and one of the world's top poultry exporters.

 

An outbreak of a less virulent strain of bird flu in 2003 led to culling of a third of domestic poultry but there have been no new cases since.

 

The Dutch farm ministry said the European Commission has not yet approved the planned vaccination. Dutch poultry unions have signalled their approval of the measure even though the EU bans livestock and meat imports from countries using vaccination.

 

France, the biggest exporter of poultry in the EU, said on Thursday that confinement measures to prevent the spread of bird flu could be extended as long as there was a risk of the disease.

 

France has ordered poultry to be kept inside in 26 of the 96 areas seen most at risk from infection of the virus by migratory birds. The measures run until the end of May.