Ireland will cull to stop bird flu

IRELAND will not vaccinate poultry against bird flu, Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan said yesterday.

Instead the country’s fowl population will be culled and any suspect or infected flocks killed, she said.

Health ministers meet in Britain today, Thursday and Friday where they will evaluate how prepared each country is for a human flu pandemic and arrange to test systems later this year.

EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou admitted that so far, few if any of the 25 member states have full stocks of anti-viral vaccinations against ordinary flu as recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Ms Coughlan, at an emergency EU meeting in Luxembourg, said Ireland is concentrating on ensuring early detection and prevention measures are in place.

“We are being very, very vigilant and working particularly with those in the poultry sector and others including the Game Council, the Department of Health and Birdwatch and we have informed all the poultry people what to watch out for,” she said.

The Government has also advised people going abroad not to visit farms or markets where live birds are on sale.

There was no need at the moment to tell poultry owners to keep their birds indoors even close to wetlands where wintering birds will be arriving this month.

Ms Coughlan said there was no scientific evidence that the virus was spread by wild birds, and fowl from areas where the virus was confirmed are banned from entering the country.

In the past, Ireland and other countries have refused to vaccinate animals to be used as food because several countries refuse to import them afterwards.