Bird flu threat - Steps needed to reassure public

The confidence expressed by Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan that her department is fully prepared for bird flu may be intended to be reassuring, but it is hardly sufficient.

Even as the Government-appointed expert group met in Dublin yesterday, tests were being conducted for the virus on a number of swans found dead around the country in Meath and Dublin.

Similar tests were being conducted in the North on other dead swans, while another found on the east coast of Scotland proved positive on Thursday for the H5N1 strain of avian flu, which affects wild birds and poultry.

This one instance found in Scotland so far is unlikely to be an isolated case, according to experts, although tests on other birds remain to be concluded.

But it will take substantially more to contain the consequences of the virus here than a ministerial statement because Ireland, like our neighbours, is vulnerable to the virus.

Since it emerged, bird flu has spread from south-east Asia across Europe - with infections in 13 EU countries - and is now at the Republic’s doorstop.

Consequently, although nothing can prevent it arriving here, steps can be put in place to minimise its fallout. At the moment, nobody but the minister, her department and, presumably, the expert group knows what to do when, rather than if, the virus strikes.

It would be folly to presume that Ireland will, somehow, remain invulnerable, and now is the time to establish procedures to mitigate its effects.

Substantially, the general public is unaware what steps the Government has taken to curtail a possible outbreak, and it seems the likelihood is that it will happen here. The same is true of the poultry industry which has a huge vested interest to protect.

At present, the threat to humans is minimal because the H5N1 virus cannot be easily passed from one person to another. In fact, the risks here to humans are practically non-existent, short of coming into contact with an infected bird, or if the virus mutates or deviates into a human illness.

To put the danger into context, according to figures issued by the World Health Organisation, 103 people have been killed world-wide from the virus since it began in late 2003.

Still, no matter how remote a danger may exist, consumers will become wary of poultry products unless they can be independently reassured that it is safe to consume them.

The Government must ensure that there are sufficient anti-viral drugs available to immunise people in infected zones in the event of the virus breaking out.

That, however, is an utterly extreme scenario and it is more likely that the only crisis that may occur is one of consumer confidence.

It needs more than the Government simply advertising a helpline number or the industry entreating the public not to panic.

Precautions similar to those taken during the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease some years ago might be properly be put in place now rather than having to be forced to do so.

In the event of an outbreak being confirmed, swift action must follow to show that every possible precaution will be taken, and seen to be taken.