Health

Panel: Europe Ready For Bird Flu?

October 26, 2005 / 9:17 AM EDT / CBS/AP

European health officials end a three-day review Wednesday of the continent's readiness to contain a possible flu pandemic, as tests confirmed the deadly strain of bird flu had reached Croatia.

World Health Organization and EU experts have been meeting in Copenhagen since Monday to analyze the threat of the bird flu virus mutating into a type that can be spread easily between humans.

There is no evidence that the deadly form of bird flu can be transmitted to humans through consumption of food, but poultry and eggs should be thoroughly cooked to avoid the possibility, the EU food agency said Wednesday.

"Whilst it is unlikely that H5N1 could be passed on to humans by raw meat or eggs, cooking food properly would inactivate the virus and eliminate this potential risk," the agency said in the statement.

Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera noted Wednesday that a warning against raw eggs "might be the end of mayonnaise, steak tartare and tiramisu."

At the start of the meeting, experts said Europe was better prepared to contain outbreaks of bird flu than Asia because of better resources and communication between countries.

The EU Commission announced Wednesday that the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia, was found in dead swans in Croatia. It was detected earlier in birds in Romania, Russia and Turkey, raising fears it could spread to the rest of Europe.

On Tuesday, the EU said it would ban the importation of exotic birds and impose stricter rules on the private ownership of parrots and other pet birds. Last weekend, a parrot imported from Suriname died in quarantine in Britain after contracting the H5N1 strain. It was believed to have been infected by other birds in quarantine.

Slovenia, Hungary and France were also testing birds found dead for signs of bird flu, underscoring the sensitivity of the issue even though officials have urged Europeans not to panic.

The European Commission assured people Wednesday that eating eggs would not put them at risk of contracting bird flu.

"We don't think there is a risk of avian flu from the consumption of eggs whether raw or cooked," the commission's public health spokesman, Philip Tod, said.

The virus is hard for humans to contract, and most of the 62 people in Asia who have died from the disease since 2003 were poultry farmers directly infected by sick birds.

In related developments:

German authorities on Wednesday ordered that all poultry be given only tap water to drink in addition to being kept indoors in efforts to prevent their coming into contact with infected migratory wild birds. Officials said preliminary tests on wild geese found dead there had come back positive for bird flu — though they had died of poisoning — and further tests were being carried out to see if they carried H5N1.

The Chinese government on Wednesday, meanwhile, announced that a bird flu outbreak has killed 545 chickens and ducks in a village in central China — the country's third case of the disease in two weeks. The outbreak in Hunan province prompted authorities to destroy 2,487 other birds in an effort to contain the virus, the Agriculture Ministry said in a report posted on the Web site of the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health.

Croatian authorities said they slaughtered all domestic poultry in four villages near a Nasice pond where two of 13 swans found dead tested positive for bird flu on Monday.

In Copenhagen, Denmark, European health officials said the continent was better prepared to contain outbreaks of bird flu than Asia because of better resources and communication between countries.

India's government has stepped up its observation of bird populations and plans to stockpile anti-viral medicines, but the country faces no immediate bird flu threat, the Health Ministry said Wednesday. Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss said the government would be talking to Swiss company Roche Holding AG, which makes the influenza drug Tamiflu, and to Indian companies that could make generic copies in a bid to build up a stock of at least 1 million courses of the drug.

The British government said Wednesday that the bird flu virus found in two quarantined birds last week had probably come through Taiwan. Environment Secretary Margaret Beckett told the House of Commons that the premises in which the two infected parrots were found had received two consignments of exotic birds from Taiwan and Surinam.

Indonesia was investigating the deaths of dozens of backyard chickens on the resort island of Bali Wednesday amid fears they may have had bird flu, officials and residents said. "It's too early to say if this is bird flu," said Ida Bagus Raka, the chief of Bali's animal husbandry department, after visiting Padang Sambian, a village on the outskirts of the island's capital Denpasar.