February 6, 2007

 

EU health commissioner urges vigilance against bird flu

 

 

The European Union must be vigilant over outbreaks of a lethal strain of bird flu, EU health commissioner Markos Kyprianou said Monday (Feb 5).

 

Kyprianou said he was "optimistic" that the EU can avoid a spread of the virus thanks to its biosecurity measures.

 

Europe's trade partners should not impose blanket bans on European poultry, he said.

 

A European Commission spokesman said it is too early to tell what caused an outbreak of the deadly virus at a turkey farm in Suffolk, on the east coast of England.

 

European bird flu experts meeting Tuesday will discuss recent outbreaks in the UK and Hungary, EU spokesman Michael Mann said.

 

The UK has taken all necessary measures to combat the disease, Mann added.

 

UK's Environment Secretary David Miliband said Monday that the outbreak of bird flu on a big English turkey farm should pose no risk to the public or to the poultry industry.

 

"I think what the public should know, not just here but around the world, is that the UK has very well-advanced contingency planning arrangements, that they are being followed by officials and farmers right around the country and they are being followed in an extremely prompt way," Miliband told Sky News.

 

UK's neighbour, France, is also on guard against bird flu. The country's national food safety agency had raised the risk of a new round of bird-flu infection to "weak" from "negligible" following the discovery of H5N1 in the UK.

 

The agency, known as AFSSA, was ordered by French Agriculture Minister Dominique Bussereau to report on the risks of the case in the UK, and called on farmers to monitor the deaths of wild birds more closely.

 

A separate outbreak was confirmed in Hungary last month, which was the first known case of the H5N1 strain within the European Union since August.