Bird flu arrives in Italy, Bulgaria, Greece and Slovenia

BIRD flu has reached western Europe with Slovenia yesterday following Italy, Greece and Bulgaria in announcing they had detected the virus in dead swans.

The Slovenian authorities informed the European Commission of a confirmed case of avian influenza virus H5 in a swan. Slovenia has sent samples for further tests to see if it is of the highly pathogenic variety.

The area where the swan was found is less than 10km from the Austrian border.

On Saturday, it was reported that dead swans discovered in Greece, Italy and Bulgaria tested positive for the highly pathogenic version of the H5N1 strain.

The commission said Slovenia was taking similar measures to those three countries, including establishing a 3km protection zone around the area where the swan was found and a surveillance zone of 10km.

Austria is to confine poultry to cages within its part of the 10km zone.

The news that the disease was detected in five swans in southern Italy came a day after the opening of the Winter Games in Turin, hundreds of miles to the north. Italian officials said the virus had only affected wild birds and posed no immediate risk to people.

The European Union said the deadly H5N1 strain, which has infected at least 166 people and killed 90, most in Asia, had been confirmed in swans in Bulgaria.

Also on Saturday, authorities in Nigeria said they were investigating whether the deadly strain, which was discovered in the country last week, had spread to humans after at least two children were reported ill.

UN bird flu expert Dr David Nabarro said the spread of bird flu increased the chance the virus would mutate into a form transmitted between humans and set off a pandemic. Most human deaths from the disease so far have been linked to contact with infected birds.

Experts said they were reassured by the fact that the virus has been detected in wild birds in western Europe instead of on farms.

Animal health officer Juan Lubroth, who works with the UN, said the infected Italian swans had arrived from the Balkans.

The EU said Italy and Greece had agreed to create six miles of protection and surveillance zones around each outbreak area, where birds will be isolated, to avoid infecting pet birds, tested for the virus and killed if they are infected.

The EU said H5N1 had been found in wild swans in Bulgarian wetlands close to the Romanian border.

Elsewhere, China reported its eighth human death from the H5N1 strain, and Indonesia its 18th.