Bird Flu Fears Grip Europe, Asia

Hungary, Greece Confirm Swan Cases; EU Debates Poultry Vaccinations

(CBS/AP)  Test results Tuesday confirmed that three dead swans found in Hungary were infected with deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, while Malaysia began killing birds after reporting its first case of the disease in more than a year.

The three dead swans, found earlier this month near the village of Nagybaracska, about 100 miles south of Budapest, were Hungary's first confirmed cases of H5N1, government spokesman Andras Batiz said.

Hong Kong's government, meanwhile, said a dead magpie found near an urban flower market was infected with the deadly strain, and health workers in western India expanded a massive slaughter of chickens.

The H5N1 virus has devastated poultry stocks and killed at least 92 people, mostly in Asia, since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. Most human cases of the disease have been linked to contact with infected birds. But scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form that is easily transmitted between humans, sparking a pandemic.

More than half a million birds have been killed in India's Navapur district since the virus was found in samples from some of the 30,000 dead chickens. The government plans to kill a total of 700,000 birds within a 1.5-mile radius of the outbreak in Maharashtra state.

On Tuesday, a Maharashtra state official said the government planned to widen the culling area to include about 100,000 more birds. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

In related developments:

Another wild bird in Greece has tested positive Tuesday for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, raising the number of confirmed cases for Greece to seven, the Agriculture Ministry said. The infected swan was found dead near the village of Kryopigi in Halkidiki peninsula, some 62 miles southeast of Thessaloniki, Greece's second-largest city.

Tests confirmed another 22 cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in wild fowl found on the northern German island of Ruegen, a laboratory reported Tuesday. The report brings the total number of cases of H5N1 found in wild birds in Germany to 103, all but two on Ruegen. A cull of poultry has been ordered in the area, and troops have been deployed to help clear away dead birds.

In London, the ravens at the Tower of London were moved indoors, CBS News correspondent Richard Roth reports Tuesday. According to legend, if the ravens leave the 11th century fortress on the River Thames, its White Tower will crumble and the Kingdom of England will fall. King Charles II decreed in the 17th century that there must always be six ravens at the Tower.

China's Ministry of Agriculture said Tuesday that regions in the north that lie along a major migration path for wild birds must be on high alert for birds carrying the virus from Europe and elsewhere as the Northern Hemisphere spring approaches. The virus killed thousands of geese in mid-2005 at a nature reserve popular with dozens of species of wild birds in China's western Qinghai province, prompting warnings that they could spread the illness when they migrated to Southeast Asia and Russia.

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©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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