Bird flu spreads amid pandemic fears

BREAKING VIRAL NEWS: PANDEMIC ALERT
A GLOBAL CONCERN: VIEW SLIDESHOW

Feb 27, 2006
BIRD flu continues to spread, with 14 European countries as well as Egypt, India, Nigeria and Iraq reporting poultry or wild birds that have been infected by avian influenza.
The confirmation of the H5N1 strain of the virus at a commercial farm in the EU has thrown France's $A10 billion poultry industry into chaos. Daniel Clair was forced to destroy 11,000 turkeys at his farm in the Ain region of south-east France. "I found 400 bodies and the others were already very sick," he told Le Parisien newspaper. "It struck like lightning."
But although China reported two new cases of bird flu in humans yesterday, World Health Organisation specialists stressed there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
Dr Michael Perdue of the WHO's Global Influenza Program said he was encouraged by the absence of new cases of human infection this year in Vietnam and Thailand.
Asked about the chances of a human pandemic, Dr Perdue said that on a scale of 1 to 10 "maybe we're midway, around 4 or 5 but the next question is, 'How long does it take to get to the number 6?' These are very difficult questions to answer."

RELATED STORY: Bird flu strikes in France
Feb 27, 2006
The European Union's first outbreak of the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu in commercial poultry was confirmed Saturday in France, the EU's largest poultry producer.
But President Jacques Chirac, trying to keep the lucrative market alive, sought to ease fears by insisting that eating poultry is safe and panic is unjustified.

China On 'High Alert' Over Bird Flu
(CBS/AP) China's agriculture minister is warning of a possible "massive bird flu outbreak" as the country announced two new human cases of the H5N1 flu strain, raising to 14 the number of human infections reports since October. "In view of the current situation, the possibility of a massive bird flu outbreak could not be ruled out," Agriculture Ministry Du Qinglin said Saturday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency. He called for agriculture authorities to be on "high alert" and to step up disease monitoring and vaccination efforts.