February 14, 2006

German experts to discuss bird flu measures

Germany's Agriculture Minister would be meeting with experts on Monday, Feb 13, to discuss precautionary measures to prevent bird flu from spreading from migrating fowls to domestic birds in the country.

Horst Seehofer would likely order all poultry and other domestic birds be kept indoors earlier than the originally planned March 1 date, after Slovenian authorities detected the virus in a swan near the Austrian border over the weekend, Agriculture Ministry spokeswoman Ulrike Hinrichs said.

Germany imposed similar restrictions on poultry and other domestic birds during the autumn migratory season.

In neighbouring Italy, the country's health minister have started to tour parts of the southern regions on Monday, where six wild swans infected with a deadly strain of bird flu virus were found.