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LONDON, Oct 22: A parrot imported from Latin America has become the first bird to die of avian flu in Britain, bringing the danger of the deadly virus much further west across the European Union as the global battle against the disease continued on Saturday.
In Russia, yet another avian influenza outbreak was reported, this time in the southern Urals region of Chelyabinsk, and among swans at a Croatian lake.
The parrot, which died in British quarantine, tested positive for the H5 strain of the bird flu virus.
Further tests on the dead parrot were expected to be conducted this weekend, and on all birds kept with it, to determine whether they were infected with the lethal H5N1 strain, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003.
It arrived in Britain from Suriname, South America, last month and had been held with a consignment of birds from Taiwan, which have since been killed, Britain’s agriculture ministry said.
In Moscow, the emergencies ministry said 31 birds in Sunaly village, in the Chelyabinsk region, had died, and in another six cases the diagnosis had been confirmed.
A Russian agriculture ministry official said on Friday the risk of the lethal strain occurring in Moscow or surrounding area was minimal, despite an outbreak in Tula, 300 kilometres south of Moscow.
Russian veterinary services said they suspected that the bird flu virus had spread to 24 areas, including 20 in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia, three in the Kurgan region and one in the southern region of Stavropol.
Croatia said further tests were needed to determine if the virus detected in six dead swans, in the lake at Zdenci in eastern Croatia, was the lethal H5N1 strain.
The Croatian agriculture ministry said all poultry in a three-kilometre area around the lake would be killed in a bid to prevent spread of the disease.
But a local expert noted that the dead swans belong to a species spread throughout Europe and warned that there might be another source of the disease which has not been detected yet.
“The swans which died in Croatia certainly did not come from Romania or Turkey,” where the disease has been already registered, Dragan Radovic told journalists.
In Romania, officials said on Friday a suspected new case of bird flu had been detected in the northeast only hours after assurances that the outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus had been contained to two southeastern locations.
TEMPORARY BAN: Germany began enforcing a temporary ban on outdoor poultry rearing in order to combat bird flu, confining fowl to sheds with spot checks on farms and fines of up to the equivalent of 30,000 dollars
The neighbouring governments of Austria, Switzerland and the principality of Liechstenstein have banned rearing free range poultry for the next few months.
The French agency for food safety recommended increased scrutiny of wildlife, but stopped short of proposing poultry be confined.
French agriculture minister Dominique Bussereau said the ‘psychosis’ about bird flu was ‘completely out of proportion’, adding that the level of protection was ‘at the maximum’.
“There is no (bird flu) disease in France or in Europe (the 25 members of the European Union). It’s not the moment to panic. It’s totally too absurd to not eat poultry,” the minister told journalists after a meeting with agricultural unions in the Roann region.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against ‘scaremongering’, but it also said each additional human case was making it easier to develop human-to-human transmission of the disease.
In Thailand on Friday doctors reported the seven-year-old son of a Thai farmer who died of bird flu had also contracted the disease, but they said the virus had not mutated and still cannot pass easily among humans.
The farmer — the 61st human victim of the virus worldwide since late 2003 died on Wednesday after slaughtering and eating a sick chicken.
Migratory birds believed to be carriers may next take the virus to Africa, the FAO has said, warning that the continent would be an ‘ideal breeding ground’ because of close contact between people and animals.
Scientists have said Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda were particularly threatened as they host millions of migratory fowl flying to warmer climes during the European winter.
Senegal — with west Africa’s largest bird sanctuaries — has asked people to take any poultry found dead to the nearest vet for inspection.
Australia has drawn up a bird flu battle plan, including the possibility of holding airline passengers in quarantine in aircraft hangars for six days, a report said on Saturday.
The government plan would be put into operation if bird flu mutated into a human-to-human virus and posed the risk of a pandemic. —AFP
