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Anxiety in Europe Over Avian Flu |
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By Julio Godoy*
In
France, people are excluding chicken from their diet, and they even
fear the pigeons on their balconies. Meanwhile, in Germany there
are calls to cancel the soccer World Cup scheduled to take place
there beginning in June.
PARIS - The multiplication of cases of wild
birds infected with the avian flu virus in at least seven European
Union countries is causing anxiety across the continent, with a
dramatic decline in poultry consumption and numerous reports of
dead birds.
In France, sales of poultry products have dropped more than 30 percent
since Feb. 13, when the first case of a wild duck infected with
the H5N1 virus was reported in Joyeux, some 500 km southeast of
Paris.
"The decline in consumption became evident the weekend of Feb. 18-19,"
Jérôme Bédier, head of the French federation of supermarkets, told
Tierramérica. "The products most affected are the full chickens,
but the lower consumption also affects dishes prepared with farmed
poultry ingredients," he added.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has tried to calm nerves, clarifying
that the available scientific evidence shows that poultry appropriately
cooked is not dangerous because heat deactivates the H5N1.
Eggs, which might hold the virus in the shell or inside, should
not be eaten uncooked if they come from areas where the diseases
has been reported.
The danger of contracting the illness lies in handling infected
poultry -- dead or alive. Most of the human cases occurred as a
result of direct contact with infected birds, especially during
slaughter.
"Since Feb. 17, our services have received more than 3,000 calls
per day, from people who are reporting dead birds or who are upset
because pigeons are landing on their balconies," said French Health
Minister Xavier Bertrand. "Normally, we received around 30 alerts
per day."
Bertrand stressed that France -- which has joined Austria, Germany,
Greece, Hungary, Italy and Slovenia in having found infected birds
-- has implemented an efficient precautionary system and that the
risk of the transmission of the disease to humans is minimal.
Since the epidemic began in Vietnam in 2003, the WHO has identified
170 human cases of bird flu, with 92 deaths.
The WHO's real fear is that the virus will mutate to a new form
that could make human-to-human contagion of the virus possible.
The EU authorized France and the Netherlands on Feb. 22 to vaccinate
farmed birds against the virus in specific regions and under strict
conditions.
But widespread vaccination of poultry is considered risky because
although the vaccine inhibits the development of the disease in
the immunized birds, it also makes it difficult to distinguish between
health and sick birds. Because of this, the EU had prohibited vaccination
until last week.
"Vaccinated animals that were infected remain healthy, but they
carry the virus and could easily transmit it," Thomas Mettenleiter,
director of the Friedrich Loeffler Institute for virus and veterinary
research in Germany, told Tierramérica.
"The virus confronted by antibodies will react and mutate. That
is why massive vaccination of farmed birds would be a mistake,"
he said.
France set up observation centers in specific regions around the
country where poultry farming is most concentrated, and stepped
up controls at international airports to prevent the entry of birds
from non-European countries affected by bird flu.
Towards the end of last year, France suspended imports of birds
and bird products, like feathers, from non-European countries where
the disease has been reported.
Other European countries have adopted similar measures, particularly
the seven nations where the virus has been verified. Germany is
currently the European country with most wild birds reported with
infection of the H5N1 virus.
On the island of Rügen, in the Baltic Sea, the German authorities
identified more than 100 infected dead wild birds, such as swans,
geese, ducks and even an eagle. Other birds were found on the mainland,
along the Baltic seaboard. The entire area was declared a disaster
zone.
In total, the officials recovered more than 2,000 bird carcasses.
The H5N1 virus was found in six percent of them.
As a precaution, the German government ordered the slaughter of
more than 3,000 birds. Hundreds of soldiers, wearing protective
biohazard suits, continue patrolling the coast, looking for wild
bird carcasses.
The discovery of infected birds on Rügen rekindled the discussion
in Germany about the threat of a flu pandemic in humans. According
to figures from the Robert Koch Institute for pulmonary illnesses,
such a pandemic could claim as many as 160,000 lives in Germany
alone.
The panic has reached a point where German political personalities
have suggested calling off the World Cup for soccer, set to take
place in that country in June and July.
The director of the WHO's bird flu program, Klaus Store, has supported
that idea. "If a pandemic should explode between now and summer,
(the German government) should have the courage to suspend the championship."
* Julio Godoy is an IPS correspondent.
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