Posted on 02/25/2006 7:02:00 AM PST by Mother Abigail
France urges calm as H5N1 bird flu hits turkey farm
By Sophie Louet
PARIS, Feb 25 (Reuters) - President Jacques Chirac urged French people on Saturday not to panic after the presence of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was confirmed at a farm in the east of the country where thousands of turkeys had died.
It was the first case of the virus in domestic farm birds in the European Union and threatened to deal a severe blow to France's struggling poultry industry, worth 6 billion euros ($7 billion) a year and the biggest in the bloc.
Poultry sales in France are already down by about 30 percent and Japan has suspended all poultry imports from France.
Chirac reiterated it was safe to eat cooked poultry after meeting farmers and veterinarians at an annual agriculture show in Paris, where no poultry are on display this year because of safety concerns.
"Unfortunately you can see a completely unjustified sort of total panic developing," Chirac said. "There is no danger in eating poultry."
Bird flu was discovered on Thursday at a farm with 11,000 turkeys in the Ain department, a region where two cases of H5N1 had already been confirmed in wild ducks.
Laboratory tests by Afssa, France's national agency for nutritional safety, showed the virus found at the turkey farm was 99 percent identical to that found in one of the ducks, the Agriculture Ministry said in a statement.
An investigation was under way to establish how the farm became contaminated with the virus, the ministry added.
"What worries us, and this is why we have reacted immediately, is that the farm is within the protection zone that we set up for the first duck," Agriculture Minister Dominique Bussereau said on Friday.
The industry received another blow when Japan's embassy in Paris said on Friday that Tokyo had imposed a temporary ban on imports of French poultry products after bird flu was found at the turkey farm.
The virus is highly contagious among poultry and can spread through an entire flock within hours. It remains difficult for humans to catch but has killed more than 90 people worldwide. Experts say cooked poultry meat is safe to eat.
The virus has spread from Asia to Africa, and experts fear poultry in more regions around the world could soon be infected.
Local sources said about 80 percent of the turkeys at the French farm, in a region famous for the quality of its chickens, had died. The remaining birds were culled.
A security zone of three km (two miles) and a surveillance zone of seven km (five miles) had been set up around the farm as is usual under EU emergency measures, officials said.
BERLIN, Feb 25 (Reuters) - A wild duck and a swan found dead near the Polish border have tested positive for bird flu, marking the apparent spread of the H5N1 virus into a fourth state in Europe's biggest economy, officials said on Saturday.
The dead birds were found on the edge of Schwedt, a city near the board of Poland, a spokesman for the agriculture ministry in the eastern state Brandenburg said.
He said the ministry did not have confirmation yet that the birds had the deadliest Asian strain of the H5N1 flu virus.
"The probability that it is, however, is high," the spokesman said.
On Friday, two dead ducks were found to carry the dangerous strain of avian flu in the northwestern state of Schleswig-Holstein, while another one tested positive in the southwestern state of Baden Wuerttemberg.
Most of the birds killed by the virus, 114 altogether, were in the Baltic coast state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the majority on an island called Ruegen.
The bird flu found in all three states has been the deadly Asia form of the virus, local and federal officials have said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L25617335.htm
Merde! Non coq au vin!
This bug is out of the box.
It was out of the box among poultry several months ago. There's not the slightest doubt that it will become widespread throughout the eastern hemisphere.
It's probably only a matter of time before it comes to the Americas, although the ocean is quite helpful. Chickens and turkeys, or even ducks, are unlikely to make the flight by themselves.
As long as the virus remains largely contagious only within the poultry population, it's only an economic disaster.
When it becomes contagious within the human population, then it's truly out of the box.
So, tell me again how it's on the verge of killing the entire worlds population?
This bird flu scare has gotten out of hand.
How so? Are a lot of your neighbors wearing surgical masks around town?
Is a lot of money being diverted to bird flu survival supplies?
Are people talking about it more than they are the Winter Olympics?
I thought those first German cases were migratory wild swans.
There was a nasty virus a few years back (West Nile virus?) that did a number on birds in SE Massachusetts. I wonder if this is related to "bird flu".
From what I'm reading, the real disaster is economic, if poultry cannot be processed and the economics and fear factor create a situation where people cut back on work, travel, shopping, etc., and lock themselves in their houses.
Sure would like to be corrected on my impressions. It's so hard to separate the truth, the "reassure the public" PR, the bad journalism, and the panic.
"From what I'm reading, the real disaster is economic"
It could be worse than that. Just think if it spreads to the chickens, and they have to destroy all of the chickens in France, who would be left?
Tell that to the poultry producers all over the Eastern Hemisphere who are being financially ruined! If it spreads to this hemisphere, it will do the same thing.
And that's the best scenario - economic ruination for an entire industry, with billions of dollars in losses. The worst is if it does manage to spread readily in human to human contact and we have a deadly pandemic. That yet remains to happen, but most knowledgeable medical authorities consider it quite possible, even likely, and the US Government is taking it very seriously.
I saw a show yesterday on cock fighting and the fear that it would be a real easy way to get it into the US....
"if they have to destroy all of the chikens in France, who would be left"
LOL It also has the makings of a good tag line.
uhhhh.....isn't this a "sport" that's real popular within the non-assimilated Latino population?
Earth to administration:
BUILD THE DAMN WALL !!!!
Note to Muslims:
Turn the turkeys over and set them on fire!
Better enjoy your Chicken McNuggets® now, while you can.
I'm going to lay-in a supply of Hudson Valley foie gras, before their stocks are killed off.
Poor birdies.
This is probably a real good time to invest in some fish farms.
"Death by cock",... not a new concept for the french.
JAKARTA, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Bird flu has killed its 20th human victim in Indonesia, a 27-year-old woman, according to tests by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, an Indonesian health ministry official said on Saturday.
The announcement came a day after the country launched house-to-house checks on poultry in Jakarta, where 600 fowl have been culled in a bid to halt the spread of the avian flu.
"We have received the test result from CDC Atlanta. Yulia (the victim) was positive," said Hariadi Wibisono, director-general of control of animal-borne disease at the health ministry.
The 27-year-old woman died last Monday after being admitted to the Sulianti Saroso hospital in Jakarta, which is designated to treat patients showing bird flu symptoms.
SHANGHAI, Feb 25 (Reuters) - China warned of the threat of a massive avian flu outbreak among birds in the country as it reported two new human cases of the virus, the official Xinhua news agency said on Saturday.
Agriculture Minister Du Qinglin said China culled 23 million fowl in 2005 as it sought to halt the spread of the disease. Of those, 163,000 were found to have the H5N1 strain of bird flu, Xinhua cited the minister as saying.
"In view of the current situation, the possibility of a massive bird flu outbreak could not be ruled out," Du said, repeating a similar warning issued earlier this week when he said a big outbreak could occur in the spring.
Earlier on Saturday, Xinhua reported that two new human cases of bird flu had been diagnosed in the east of the country.
A Chinese girl in eastern Zhejiang province and a woman farmer in neighbouring Anhui province were currently in critical condition, Xinhua cited the Ministry of Health as saying.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.