Deutsche Welle: Europe Moves to Contain Bird Flu Outbreaks

Europe Moves to Contain Bird Flu Outbreaks

European officials were scrambling Sunday to contain outbreaks of bird flu after cases of the H5N1 strain of the viral disease were for the first time confirmed in EU members Greece and Italy as well as in Bulgaria. Italian health officials held a crisis meeting Sunday after the discovery of H5N1 in southern Italy. The meeting was chaired by Health Minister Francesco Storace and brought together health officials from Puglia, Calabria and Sicily -- the southern regions where the virus was found in migrating swans. The health official for Puglia, Alberto Tedesco, told the meeting that strict control measures were already in place, ANSA news agency reported. Another expert attending the meeting, Antonio Limone, said the situation was "under control" in agricultural zones and on the markets. Storace said Saturday that the highly pathogenic strain, responsible for the deaths of some 90 people, mainly in Asia, had been found in a total of 21 dead swans, five of them with a virulent form.The European Commission reacted calmly to the news that the virus had for the first time crossed into the 25-member bloc, after having previously infected birds as close as Romania and killed four people in Turkey. Storace tried to calm fears by saying that no one had caught the virus directly from wild birds. But hospitals in Sicily said they would test patients showing flu symptoms to determine the type of infection. Five chickens found dead near the Sicilian town of Caltanissetta were undergoing tests.