EU finds no bird flu in Romania
|
|
Bird flu has not been detected in Romania, European Union veterinary experts said on Wednesday, confirming that the highly contagious disease has not yet reached Europe.
“The disease situation amongst poultry and wild birds ... the available epidemiological data and the laboratory results at present do not confirm the presence of avian influenza,” the European Commission said in a statement after a meeting of EU member state vets.
Preliminary tests last week on three ducks in Romania’s Danube delta near the Black Sea proved positive and raised fears that the disease had entered Europe, but the EU vets’ results made clear the virus was not present.
The Commission also announced on Wednesday that it would extend until next April its ban on imports of poultry products and pet birds from Turkey, where avian influenza was discovered at the weekend at a farm near the Aegean and Marmara seas.
Test results due on Friday were expected to show whether Turkey has a low-risk strain or the more serious H5N1 virus, which has killed or forced the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia and killed more than 60 people.
Turkey meanwhile sought to dispel fears over its outbreak.
“The disease is under control. It is has not been seen in any other place. We are monitoring it very seriously and our aim is to combat the outbreak with the least possible damage,” farm minister Mehdi Eker told the Turkish parliament in Ankara.
Underlining that message, the head of the health ministry’s epidemics office, Ramazan Gozukucuk, was quoted by the state Anatolian news agency as saying: “The incident remains purely local. There’s no need for panic or worry.”
Cyprus, however, said it would stockpile anti-viral drugs as part of its contingency planning against bird flu.
Experts fear that the virus, known to pass to humans from birds, could mutate and start to spread easily from person to person, potentially killing millions around the world.
THAILAND OFFERS HELP
Amid fears that the virus might be creeping closer to the European Union’s borders, the EU executive announced that Thailand, whose poultry sector has been ravaged by bird flu, had offered its assistance to the EU.
Bird flu began sweeping through Thai poultry flocks in late 2003, all but wiping out markets for what was then the world’s fourth largest poultry exporter.
With pharmaceutical companies under pressure to increase output of drugs to fight any human pandemic, Switzerland’s Roche Holding AG said it was enlisting the help of other specialized firms in producing its Tamiflu antiviral treatment.
Tamiflu is the most effective antiviral drug available for avian flu. There are fears of a shortage if the virus spreads widely among humans.
Roche said that while it was outsourcing some stages of its production it would not surrender the patents that protect the treatment and it had no plans to farm out the entire production process to other companies, not least because of its complexity.
“We are already collaborating with several specialist companies on the production process for Tamiflu,” a spokesman for Roche said. “This has nothing to do with the patent.”
Tamiflu and other antiviral drugs are viewed as the best way to fight pandemic flu - and Roche has come under pressure to allow production of cheap generic versions of the medicine.
Roche plans to double Tamiflu production by the end of this year and to double it again by mid-2006, as governments place bulk orders for the drug.
Print Version
Tell-a-Friend comments powered by Disqus
