BIRD FLU: Countries around Europe banned the importation of many poultry products from Turkey and Romania yesterday, as the Black Sea nations fought outbreaks of bird flu.
Thousands of birds are being culled in both countries as scientists try to establish whether the feared H5N1 form of avian flu - which has infected more than 100 people in Asia, killing at least 60 of them - has reached Europe's eastern shores.
The European Commission led the way in banning imports of live birds and feathers from Turkey, after some 1,800 birds perished on a farm in the west of the country, which is on a major migration route for birds heading south for the winter.
Romania's Danube Delta is on the same route, and experts believe birds from Russia - where areas of Siberia and the Ural mountains reported cases of H5N1 - have brought the avian flu with them to Romania and Turkey.
Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Albania, Macedonia, Switzerland, Ukraine, Poland and Greece have also banned imports of poultry products from Turkey and Romania, and are on alert for any widespread illness among their own bird life.
"Science is showing that the virus has not been identified. The virological analyses have confirmed that the virus is present [ in Turkey] but at the moment we are not able to say what type of virus we are talking about - how pathogenic it is," said European Commission health spokesman Philip Tod.
Results of those analyses should be available tomorrow, Mr Tod said.
Scientists fear avian flu, and particularly the H5N1 virus, could mutate into a strain that passes easily between humans and could lead to a pandemic similar to that which killed millions of people in 1917-18.
Turkish military police quarantined two villages as veterinarians killed thousands of chickens, turkeys, pigeons and even stray dogs to try and quell the outbreak.
In the Danube Delta, Romanian vets planned to kill some 15,000 birds, while doctors were vaccinating the human residents of Europe's largest wetland.
Scientists from a British government laboratory were due to arrive in Romania and Turkey yesterday to help analyse samples taken from dead birds.
Russia plans to cull another 460,000 birds in Siberia, after lifting precautions in most areas after many birds left the country on migration.
Hundreds of thousands of those birds are expected to rest and feed in the Danube Delta and Turkey, and could infect domestic birds upon contact.
Italy detected a low risk H5N2 avian flu virus in April this year and destroyed at least 180,000 turkeys, but the outbreak did not pose a threat to public health.
An outbreak of suspected bird flu in 2003 led to the slaughter of a quarter of all Dutch poultry at a cost of hundreds of millions of euro.
The H5N1 bird flu virus has killed more than 60 people and millions of birds in several parts of Asia since late 2003 and experts have warned for months that it may soon mutate into a strain that is easily transmitted among people and unleash the next pandemic.
Experts have warned the world must not forget other equally lethal avian viruses.