Tuesday, February 28, 2006
US bans poultry from French regions over avian influenza (bird flu) fears
The United States has banned all poultry, both live and meat, shipments from the region of France where bird flu was found in turkeys.
The virus was found last week at a farm in France’s Ain region. This was the European Union’s first case of the H5N1 strain of bird flu.
The outbreak in France’s Ain region, reported last week, is the European Union’s first encounter with the deadly H5N1 virus.
Evidence has shown that proper cooking and handling of bird meat infected with the bird flu virus will kill it.
The ban on French poultry and birds will apply only to those from the state of Ain, not to the entire country of France. Officials announced the restriction late Monday.