EU adopted new measures against bird flu

On February 16, the European Union (EU) adopted new measures to prevent the spread of bird flu in the continent after a two-day meeting in Brussels.

Bird flu has been detected in many European countries in the past week (Photo: TTO) European council officer specializing in health Markos Kyprianou said all necessary measures are being carried out and the public should not 'excessive fear' .

The EU move comes shortly after Slovenia confirmed a swan discovered in the north of the country carrying a deadly H5N1 virus.

Last week, H5N1 was also confirmed in wild swans in Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Greece and Italy. Hungary is also testing dead swans to see if they are infected with bird flu.

At a meeting in Brussels, health officials approved steps to prevent bird flu, including automatically setting up a protected area within 3 km and a 10 km isolation zone around the outbreaks of the flu. holding wild birds; If the bird flu virus can be spread from wild birds to poultry, these 'buffers' can cover the entire area and transport of poultry will be limited to this area.

These measures are expected to be applied in the next few days.

BBC reporters said that when bird flu first appeared in Europe, its ability to spread to humans is the biggest concern. But now the authorities' biggest concern is that the virus could spread to European poultry.

Some European countries, including Germany, Sweden and Denmark have demanded to keep poultry in order to avoid infection.

Other developments of bird flu:

• France is testing bird flu from a dead goose near Lyon and two ducks died in northern Paris for unknown reasons.
• Slovenia confirmed H5N1 in a dead swan in the north of the country.
• Greece discovered two more geese infected with H5N1 in the north of the country.
• Austria found the third goose infected with bird flu near Graz.
• Hungary is conducting tests on suspected H5N1 geese.

So far, H5N1 has killed at least 90 people around the world, mostly in Southeast Asia. It can infect people who come in direct contact with infected birds but there is no evidence that it spreads from person to person.

WALL VY (According to BBC)