Press Release: Avian influenza in Romania and Turkey: Commission takes further action

The European Commission was taking further action following the confirmation on 12 October 2005 of the presence of avian influenza H5 virus in Romania and the results from the EU laboratory on the following morning indicating that the avian influenza virus in Turkey was H5N1 closely related to a virus detected in a wild bird in central Asia a few months earlier. The measures were to be discussed at an emergency meeting of the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health in Brussels later in the day.