Bird flu crisis worsens as deadly virus reaches Greece

THE EU is to ban the movement of live birds and poultry meat from a Greek island region as the authorities there struggle with their first case of bird flu.

The worsening crisis has spread to a turkey farm on the Aegean Sea island of Oinouses, near the Turkish coast.

Greek Agriculture Minister Evengelos Basiakos said the H5 virus had been detected in one of nine turkeys tested on Oinouses.

Tests are also being conducted for the deadly H5N1 virus which world health experts fear could mutate to a human form and cause a flu pandemic.

The EU said it expected experts at Greece’s national reference laboratory in Thessaloniki to have results on samples taken from the suspected turkeys today.

In Asia, 60 people have died from the virus, which they contracted through contact with poultry.

The head of the expert group appointed by the Government to devise measures to combat a bird flu pandemic has said Ireland is doing everything it should to prepare for an outbreak.

Professor William Hall said he was reluctant to predict the number of deaths which would arise from a pandemic, as the figures were difficult to calculate.

But public health doctors have warned the Department of Health has not learned any lessons from the SARS scare two years’ ago.

Chairwoman of the IMO Public Health Committee Dr Joan Gilvarry said an after-hours service is vital to “contain any outbreak.