Anarch
10-27-2005, 01:15 AM
Bird flu lands in Croatia
October 27, 2005 - 7:47AM
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bird-flu-lands-in-croatia/2005/10/27/1130302866021.html
A virulent Asian strain of bird flu has arrived in Croatia for the first time and may also have infected three tourists who visited Thailand, officials said today, deepening worldwide concern over the spreading virus.
Dead swans found last week in Croatia's rural northeast were carrying the H5N1 strain that has killed at least 62 people in Asia in the past two years, a veterinary official said, while thousands of miles away on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion three humans were being tested for bird flu.
The results of tests carried out by a British laboratory on the Croatian material were "what we were expecting", veterinary official Vladimir Savic told a news conference. "It is the highly pathogenic H5N1."
Europe was on maximum alert for the further spread of the H5N1 strain, which had already been detected in Romania, Russia and Turkey. A westward sweep, health experts believed, was caused by birds migrating ahead of the winter.
Nearly all the humans who have died so far from the H5N1 virus - two thirds of whom were in Vietnam - had been in close, recent contact with infected birds.
France revealed today that three people from Reunion were feared to have been infected with the disease during a trip to Thailand.
Officials suspected the trio may have caught H5N1 when they visited a Thai zoo together and were in contact with birds there, French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said in Paris.
Initial tests carried out after their return to Reunion, a French-ruled island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, had been positive, and samples were being rushed to Paris for further tests, he said.
"We will have results for the first patient tomorrow," said Bertrand.
Though the virus spread quickly between birds, it did not pass easily between humans.
The big fear was it could mutate with a form of human flu to create a strain capable of jumping from human to human and unleashing a pandemic, which could kill millions worldwide.
Asia had borne the brunt of the disease so far, with China rushing through an emergency response today after the country's third confirmed outbreak of the virulent strain inside a week.
Chinese officials mobilised roadside sterilisation stations and inspected markets after 545 chickens and ducks died from H5N1 in the central province of Hunan, the Ministry of Agriculture said in a report filed to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).
The European Union barred imports of pet birds following the detection of the H5N1 strain in a dead parrot held in quarantine in Britain.
British officials said the infection most likely was spread from other quarantined birds from Taiwan, something Taiwanese officials rejected Wednesday as "unlikely".
The European Food Safety Authority said today there was no proof people can catch the disease by eating chicken or eggs, but it advised people to properly cook such foods to avoid any risk.
- AFP
October 27, 2005 - 7:47AM
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bird-flu-lands-in-croatia/2005/10/27/1130302866021.html
A virulent Asian strain of bird flu has arrived in Croatia for the first time and may also have infected three tourists who visited Thailand, officials said today, deepening worldwide concern over the spreading virus.
Dead swans found last week in Croatia's rural northeast were carrying the H5N1 strain that has killed at least 62 people in Asia in the past two years, a veterinary official said, while thousands of miles away on the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion three humans were being tested for bird flu.
The results of tests carried out by a British laboratory on the Croatian material were "what we were expecting", veterinary official Vladimir Savic told a news conference. "It is the highly pathogenic H5N1."
Europe was on maximum alert for the further spread of the H5N1 strain, which had already been detected in Romania, Russia and Turkey. A westward sweep, health experts believed, was caused by birds migrating ahead of the winter.
Nearly all the humans who have died so far from the H5N1 virus - two thirds of whom were in Vietnam - had been in close, recent contact with infected birds.
France revealed today that three people from Reunion were feared to have been infected with the disease during a trip to Thailand.
Officials suspected the trio may have caught H5N1 when they visited a Thai zoo together and were in contact with birds there, French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said in Paris.
Initial tests carried out after their return to Reunion, a French-ruled island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, had been positive, and samples were being rushed to Paris for further tests, he said.
"We will have results for the first patient tomorrow," said Bertrand.
Though the virus spread quickly between birds, it did not pass easily between humans.
The big fear was it could mutate with a form of human flu to create a strain capable of jumping from human to human and unleashing a pandemic, which could kill millions worldwide.
Asia had borne the brunt of the disease so far, with China rushing through an emergency response today after the country's third confirmed outbreak of the virulent strain inside a week.
Chinese officials mobilised roadside sterilisation stations and inspected markets after 545 chickens and ducks died from H5N1 in the central province of Hunan, the Ministry of Agriculture said in a report filed to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).
The European Union barred imports of pet birds following the detection of the H5N1 strain in a dead parrot held in quarantine in Britain.
British officials said the infection most likely was spread from other quarantined birds from Taiwan, something Taiwanese officials rejected Wednesday as "unlikely".
The European Food Safety Authority said today there was no proof people can catch the disease by eating chicken or eggs, but it advised people to properly cook such foods to avoid any risk.
- AFP