Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Germany confirms 1st case of H5N1 in domestic fowl
BERLIN (Reuters) - Authorities in the eastern German state of Saxony said on Wednesday that tests have confirmed for the first time the presence of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in domestic fowl.
This is the second confirmed case of H5N1 in domestic fowl in the European Union after a case in France in late February.
“This is the first case of H5N1 in domestic fowl (in Germany) and this makes it somewhat explosive,” Saxony’s Minister of Social Affairs, Helma Orosz, told a news conference. “Tonight we will start to kill all the birds.”
Several EU countries, including Germany, have reported cases of avian flu in wild birds, but most have so far managed to keep it out of domestic flocks.
Orosz said the farm had been exempt from a poultry lock-up which had been in force across Germany since February 17 to prevent avian flu spreading from wild birds to domestic fowl.
The first birds had died on Sunday on the farm which houses more than 16,000 turkey, geese and chicken, officials said.
A restricted quarantine zone with a radius of 3 km was established, along with a larger observation area inside a 13-km radius from the location of the H5N1-infected birds.
The European Commission in Brussels, said the situation will be discussed by the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health this afternoon in the light of the information received from the German authorities.