UN rekindles bird flu migration fears in Europe
|
|
Migrating birds pose a serious risk of spreading avian flu around the world, including into western Europe, the United Nations food agency said on Wednesday, rekindling fears that European experts moved to quash last week.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) told a news conference that parts of eastern Europe, Africa and south Asia were at risk of being infected by the virus in the near term. Western Europe could face such a risk next year, it said.
“Now that the winter is coming the risk is expanding rather fast into areas of eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa,” said Samuel Jutzi, head of animal protection and health at the Rome-based FAO.
Bird flu has killed more than 60 people in southeast Asia and forced the slaughter of millions of fowl since the outbreak began in 2003. The H5N1 strain, which is potentially dangerous to humans, has been found in six Russian regions and Kazakhstan, causing the deaths of nearly 14,000 fowl.
“There’s no reason whatever to believe that this geographic expansion will finish in Kazakhstan,” Jutzi said. South Asia was also a region at risk, he added.
The spread into central Asia and towards eastern Europe has fuelled fears about the mobility of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu. The World Health Organisation has warned the virus could trigger a deadly global pandemic if it mutates to become easily passed from one human to another.
At present humans usually contract the illness from close contact with an infected bird.
“The risk of a human pandemic can be drastically reduced, if not avoided, by action if countries and international organisations are decisive enough in fighting the virus at its source—in the animals,” Jutzi said.
URGENT ACTION
Some 50 countries, including France, have so far set up national plans to prevent the spread of the H5N1 strain.
French President Jacques Chirac called on Wednesday for urgent coordinated action to combat the spread of bird flu and offered technical assistance to other countries in their fight against the deadly virus.
On Tuesday Poland called on the European Union to help Russia stop the spread of the virus.
“Poland wants the EU to talk with Russia about how the whole EU can help Russia—including financial assistance—to prevent the spread of bird flu on its territory,” Polish Interior Minister Ryszard Kalisz told a news conference.
Finnish officials said a low-pathogenic strain of bird flu virus had been found in three seagulls discovered dead, but that the birds had died of starvation, not the disease itself.
Tests were being carried out to determine the exact strain of the virus the birds carried, but the National Veterinary and Food Research Institute (EELA) ruled out the pathogenic version that has killed people in Asia.
Iran banned imports of all animal feed from countries that have reported cases of bird flu, a senior trade official told Reuters on Wednesday.
Analysts said the bird flu ban would particularly affect the Caspian Sea grains trade and a Russian grains analyst said it had already pushed down grain prices in Russia.
A group of EU veterinary experts last week dismissed the idea that birds returning from winter migration posed a serious risk to the region.
They agreed that migratory birds could bring the virus to eastern European countries like Romania and Bulgaria, but not into the EU. “The immediate risk is probably remote or low,” they said in a statement.
“I don’t think there is a contradiction,” Jutzi told Reuters. “We agree that the risk of migratory birds posing a risk to central Europe is currently low.”
He said the FAO had a “slight difference” of opinion in that, unlike the EU vets, it believed returning birds could bring the virus to western Europe, by as early as next spring.
But Poland’s deputy chief veterinarian Janusz Zwiazek said that based on migratory patterns he believed wild birds could bring the disease to Poland in as little as two weeks’ time.
Poorer countries may lack the expertise or resources to be so rigorous and may require financial help, the FAO said. The FAO has already asked for $100 million to support control measures in southeast Asia, but has only received $25 million.
“Therefore we can assume the risk of a human pandemic has been increased by the negligence of the international community.”
Print Version
Tell-a-Friend comments powered by Disqus
