France, Germany raise bird flu threat level

Several countries in Europe are bringing in measures and stepping up threat levels to prevent recent outbreaks of deadly H5N1 avian flu in the wild bird population from spreading to commercial and farm birds. According to Euronews, officials in France and Germany have this week found a number of wild birds that died from the deadly virus. Germany raised its threat level after it confirmed a recent outbreak in the state of Thuringia, in the east of the country. Wild birds that had died from the virus were also found in Saxony and Bavaria last month. In France, Europe’s biggest producer of poultry, the disease was confirmed yesterday in three dead swans found in Moselle in the eastern part of the country.

MedicalNews reports that it is France’s first case in more than a year. The swans were young and had not arrived with migrating birds. Farms have been sealed off and an eight mile observation zone has been established around the village of Assenoncourt where the dead swans were found. France has raised its alert level to high, which means birds and poultry will either have to be kept locked up indoors or covered by nets to prevent contact with wild birds, said Michel Bernier, France’s minister for agriculture and fishing. Other activities involving bird transport such as racing pigeons have also been stopped. There are also reports of restrictions on commercial poultry being introduced in The Netherlands but it is not clear where the virus has been found.

The first outbreaks of deadly H5N1 in the European Union were reported in January 2006 when it was found in wild swans in Italy, Greece, Germany and Austria. Last year thirteen EU states reported confirmed cases of bird flu: Austria, Britain, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Sweden.

So far the deadly H5N1 virus has only spread to humans through contact with infected birds. According to the WHO there have been 317 confirmed cases of human infection with this strain of bird flu worldwide, of which 191 people have died, which is a very high fatality rate. A pandemic, in which the virus spreads from human to human and sweeps across the world, will only happen if the virus mutates into a form where human to human infection is possible. It is not possible to say when this might be, but scientists reckon that the more time the virus spends in an infected population, the more chance it has of mutating into other forms, including a human to human version.

WHO uses a six phase public alert system to inform the public of the threat of a pandemic. The current phase is set at phase 3.