Europe prepares to meet threat of deadly virus

Britain is to begin testing wild birds for avian flu following a European Union meeting on the growing threat from a deadly strain of the virus.

Scientists fear a lethal form of bird flu that can infect humans may be brought into the country by migrating waterfowl.

Senior European officials were meeting overnight (NZT) in Brussels to assess options for protecting domestic poultry from the virus.

The moves come after an increase in infections and the threat of the virus, which originated in Asia, spreading into Europe via Russia.

The British Government's chief vet was due to meet ornithologists to discuss a strategy for testing.

Fears about the spread of the H5N1 strain of avian flu - which has killed more than 60 people in Asia - have intensified since its discovery in migratory birds and domestic poultry in central Russia.

Scientists believe that migrating birds are increasing the global range of the virus, which is thought to have originated in China.

Experts warn that the virus could spread past the European side of the Ural mountains and birds migrating from Russia to Britain this autumn could spread avian flu to free-range British poultry.

The World Health Organisation has warned that the spread of the virus has brought the prospect of another human pandemic closer than at any time since 1968 - the year of the last flu pandemic.

Poultry farmers in the Netherlands have already moved their free-range stock indoors to prevent contact with wild birds that may be carrying the virus. German farmers have been told to take precautions by September 15.

The Dutch have taken the action unilaterally because of a devastating outbreak of a different strain of avian flu in 2003 which resulted in the slaughter of 30 million chickens.

During that outbreak, 89 people in the Netherlands - mostly poultry workers and their close contacts - became infected although only one person, a vet, died of pneumonia.

Britain has about 120 million poultry worth 1.3 billion ($3.35 billion) a year.

About 25 per cent of the total egg-laying flock are kept outdoors and about 10 per cent of chickens raised for meat are free-range.

Senior scientists have advised the British Government not to consider a mass cull of wild birds because it would prove ineffective in stemming the spread of the virus to poultry.

Instead they have emphasised the importance of knowing whether the H5N1 strain of the virus is present in animals in the wild.

The tests will analyse swabs taken from wild birds for the presence of the lethal strain.

The birds to be surveyed include wild duck, geese, swans and possibly gulls, which are all known or thought to be capable of carrying the virus and of transmitting it to domestic poultry when they come into contact with one another.

British ministers have so far resisted calls to keep free-range birds under cover - a measure that could affect the valuable status of the stock.

A Government spokeswoman said that at this stage the risk from wild birds is considered too low to warrant a ban on keeping free-range birds outside, although the option is under constant review.

"It is disproportionate to keep them indoors but if the virus spreads to the west of the Urals we would have to consider putting poultry under cover," she said.

In the current epidemic of the H5N1 strain in Asia, more than 112 people have been infected, mostly in Vietnam and Thailand, but there has also been a small number of cases in Cambodia and Indonesia.

So far there have only been a few instances of transmission from human to human.

The greatest fear, however, is that a more transmissible virus will evolve that could cause a pandemic of a highly lethal strain of human influenza. The World Health Organisation has warned of the possibility of a devastatingly lethal pandemic caused by H5N1.

"The expanding geographical presence of the virus is of concern as it creates further opportunities for human exposure.

"Each additional human case increases opportunities for the virus to improve its transmissibility, through either adaptive mutation or reassortment," the WHO said.

"The emergence of an H5N1 strain that is readily transmitted among humans would mark the start of a pandemic."

- INDEPENDENT