Calm reactions to UK outbreak of bird flu

Europeans have responded calmly to outbreaks of bird flu in England, after more than a year of scares and with no sign that the animal disease has developed into a human variant. UK poultry sales are reported to be stable.

Around 159,000 turkeys were slaughtered this week after the discovery of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu on a poultry farm in the east of England. The news follows two outbreaks of H5NI in Hungary last month. Budapest is particularly nervous about bird flu, having slaughtered over a million birds last summer in the worst EU outbreak so far.

Following the first outbreaks of bird flu in late 2005, Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou encouraged member states to stockpile the anti-viral drug Tamiflu. This week the commissioner stressed the difference between human and animal health risks posed by the virus.

"We should look at this as an animal disease and not bring in the idea of [human] pandemics," he told journalists. "Pandemics are a totally separate issue."

The Commission denied that this signalled a change from its reaction to the first outbreaks of bird flu. The Commission was last year criticised for not making it clear enough that cooked poultry meat and eggs remain safe to eat during a bird flu scare, as producers were hit by plummeting sales.

A Commission spokes-man said: "We don’t think we have changed anything…bird flu outbreaks happen, we are not panicking…we think measures are in place and are working well."

But Konstantin Kreiser of BirdLife, a conservation group, said the Commission’s reaction appeared "to reflect the lessons learned, and planning undertaken, since last year’s outbreaks in Europe".

"It is good to see that there is no exaggeration of the [currently small] risks to human health," he added.

A sick UK worker from the affected poultry farm yesterday (7 January) tested negative for bird flu and is being treated for a normal seasonal infection.

Europeans have responded calmly to outbreaks of bird flu in England, after more than a year of scares and with no sign that the animal disease has developed into a human variant. UK poultry sales are reported to be stable.