Posted on 02/24/2006 4:34:55 PM PST by blam
France holds human bird flu drill
The bird flu drill in Lyons tested the response of medical teams
Authorities in France have staged an exercise to test the ability of the emergency services to cope with an outbreak of bird flu in humans. At least 10 EU countries, including France, have reported cases of the deadly H5N1 strain in wild birds.
The French drill in Lyons came as the EU agreed to launch a public awareness campaign to ease fears about the virus.
French PM Dominique de Villepin says France has "one of the most sophisticated plans in Europe".
In other developments:
* Slovakia confirms its first cases of H5N1 in a wild falcon and grebe
* Georgia confirms its first outbreak of bird flu and is awaiting tests to show whether it is the deadly H5N1 strain
* Officials in Germany say tests carried out on a domestic duck thought to be infected with the H5N1 strain are negative
* South Korean health officials confirm four poultry workers were infected with bird flu in 2003 but it did not cause them to become ill.
Farming threat
In the scenario which formed the basis on the Lyons exercise, two "patients" arriving on a plane from the Far East showed symptoms of the virus.
They had to be separated from their fellow passengers, put into waiting ambulances and evacuated to a nearby hospital isolation ward. Samples were taken for analysis, with a diagnosis in hours.
At a news conference following the exercise, Mr de Villepin said France was as prepared as possible to deal with any outbreak, and had acquired 14 million vials of treatment.
Test results are expected on Friday on turkeys killed by a suspected infection on a farm in south-eastern France. All 11,000 birds on the farm were slaughtered after some were found dead.
If confirmed, the case would be the first in the EU of H5N1 in domestic poultry.
France's poultry industry - valued at about 6bn euro (£4bn) - has been hit with a 30% drop in sales since the crisis erupted, industry officials say.
Mr de Villepin announced an extra 52m euros (£35m) in aid for farmers on Thursday, including 2m euros (£1.3m) for a campaign to reassure consumers about eating poultry.
'Don't panic'
Meeting in Vienna, EU health ministers agreed a "co-ordinated information policy" on the risks and preventative measures for both farmers and the general public to take, Austria's Health Minister Maria Rauch-Kallat said.
European Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said the message to the public was to be alert, not alarmed.
"There's no reason to panic or over-react, every time there's a new dead swan or a new dead duck," he said.
"We have the measures, we will take the measures, contain, and eventually, we are optimistic, be able to eliminate the disease."
The H5N1 bird flu strain does not currently pose a large-scale threat to humans, as it cannot pass from one person to another.
Experts, however, fear the virus could mutate to gain this ability, and in its new form trigger a flu pandemic, killing millions of people.
The lethal H5N1 strain has killed more than 90 people - mostly in Asia, and who had been in close contact with infected birds - since late 2003.
ok, ok, ok if its a french bird flu drill , does it turn clockwise or counter-clockwise?
A French bird flu drill. OK, I'll bite. How do you surrender to a virus?
Can we go back to worrying about global warming?
ML/NJ
Did they surrender yet? :))
Good post. My thoughts exactly.
At least yellow is a color in there somewhere.
LOL
**Can we go back to worrying about global warming?**
Silly, global warming caused bird flu. If Bush had signed the treaty against global warming there would be no more disease. ;)
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