February 10, 2006

EU takes action against suspected bird flu in Greece

The EU has announced on Feb 9 that it will take some precautionary steps after the Greek government suspected three dead wild swans to have the bird flu virus.

On Feb 10, the EU will adopt a safeguard measure to strengthen bio-security on poultry farms in the affected areas. Poultry movement from the affected areas to other areas will be subject to rigorous controls.

On Feb 9 itself, the National Reference Laboratory in Greece detected the bird flu virus in samples taken from the dead swans found in the prefectures of Thessaloniki and Pieria.

Samples have been taken to the Community Reference Laboratory for further tests to establish if the virus has spread to Eastern Europe recently.