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  PlanetArk 15 Dec 05
Europe Relaxes Bird Flu Measures as Migration Ends
Story by Michael Hogan

HAMBURG - Europe has begun to relax some anti-bird flu measures as fears ease that the disease could be spread around the continent by migrating birds.

"The peak period for bird migration is almost over and the monitoring of wild birds has not found any contamination," a Dutch farm ministry spokeswoman said this week.

Many European countries confined farm poultry to their pens in the autumn after migrating birds spread bird flu close to Moscow, to Turkey and Romania. Since then the disease has not moved substantially westwards, despite fears migrating birds would spread it throughout Europe.

Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland are among those countries which imposed regulations restricting poultry and other birds from being raised outdoors and are now relaxing them.

Germany's Friedrich Loeffler scientific institute, which advises the German government on bird diseases, has cut its assessment of the risk migratory birds will spread the disease to Germany to low from "high to moderate". Siegfried Hart, chief executive of German poultry farming and industry association ZDG, called the outdoor ban a success. "It was aimed at preventing the spread of the disease by migrating birds and it has done so," he said. "It was not a great problem for farmers but we want to permit poultry outside again for animal welfare reasons."

NOT EVERYONE CONVINCED

While several European countries say they will again permit farm poultry to be kept outdoors others plan to retain emergency orders to keep chickens and turkeys indoors to prevent any danger of contact with the millions of birds flying from infected areas in central Asia.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu virus has killed 71 people in Asia since it swept through large parts of the region in late 2003, and experts say a flu pandemic among humans could kill millions and cause massive economic losses. The French government said confinement measures it announced in October would be extended until the end of May.

The ban on keeping poultry outside applies to 26 of mainland France's 96 local government regions deemed most at risk from infection by migratory birds. The original measures also included a ban on fairs and exhibitions with wild birds. There is also a ban on feeding poultry outside across the whole country.

"Things can always change, but for the moment we have no plans to revise these measures," a spokeswoman for the French farm ministry said.

The French poultry farmers' association CFA said confinement was seriously affecting the part of the industry that raises free-range birds. "It is killing off the quality label industry," CFA spokesman Christian Marinov said. "We are also hearing that Brussels might put a limit of 12 weeks of confinement and then free-range poultry producers could lose their label," he added.

Spain's Agriculture Ministry said it was extending measures imposed on November 30 through to May 31.

The measures identify 25 wetland areas as high risk, and limit the movement of birds in those regions and bans keeping poultry in the open air anywhere in Spain.
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