EU seeks to soothe trade tensions over bird flu

The European Union urged its trading partners yesterday not to over-react to an outbreak of bird flu in France after Japan suspended all French poultry imports and threatened a similar ban on the Netherlands.

Japan's move caused alarm in Europe's two biggest poultry producers after tests confirmed the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu had hit a farm in eastern France, the first case of the virus in domestic farm birds in the EU.

"While I understand their decision to take precautionary measures, any action must be proportionate," Mandelson told Reuters during a visit to an annual farm show in Paris.

The virus is highly contagious among poultry and can spread through an entire flock in hours. It remains difficult for humans to catch but has killed more than 90 people worldwide.

China said yesterday that two people were critically ill after contracting the virus, while Indonesia said tests had confirmed that a woman who died last Monday was the 20th person killed by the virus there.

Confirmation of the H5N1 strain in France, at a farm where thousands of turkeys have died or been culled, threatens to deal a severe blow to France's poultry industry - worth €6 billion a year and the biggest in the 25-nation EU.

The Netherlands is the next biggest European producer, with exports of live birds, meat and eggs worth about €1.5 billion a year.

A wild duck and a swan found dead near Germany's border with Poland have also tested positive for bird flu, officials said, marking the apparent spread of the H5N1 virus into a fourth German state.

French President Jacques Chirac, a former agriculture minister, sought to quell growing panic after meeting farmers and veterinarians at the Paris farm show, where no poultry are on display this year because of health concerns.

Poultry sales in France are already down by about 30 per cent and panic has grown since bird flu was discovered on Thursday at the farm with 11,000 turkeys in the Ain department, a region where two cases of H5N1 have also been confirmed in wild ducks.

The virus has spread from Asia to Africa, and experts fear poultry in more regions around the world could soon be infected.

Japan imposed a temporary ban on French poultry on Friday, hours before the H5N1 strain was confirmed in France.

The Dutch farm ministry said yesterday Tokyo would implement similar action against the Netherlands when it starts a preventive vaccination programme. Japanese consumers fear a possible health risk from vaccinated animals.

The Netherlands plans to vaccinate its 1 to 3 million backyard poultry and about 5 million free range poultry in about 10 days. Dutch farmers have said they will reject vaccination if they are not able to export.

Under EU rules, poultry meat, eggs and products from the zones set up around a bird flu infection site are blocked from the market, except for certain products that meet stringent conditions, such as heat-treated meat.

However, trade in these products may continue from other non-affected parts of the country.

In Jakarta, a health ministry official said yesterday the latest victim was a 27-year-old woman, according to tests by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

The latest patients in China included a woman farmer, diagnosed on February 11 with symptoms of fever and pneumonia, and who had come into contact with sick and dead poultry.

The other, a nine-year-old girl from Anji County, had visited relatives who kept poultry but it was not clear how she had been infected, Xinhua news agency said.

So far most human victims of bird flu globally have had direct or indirect contact with chickens, but there are fears the virus will mutate into a strain easily passed among people, causing a pandemic in which millions could die.