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  ChannelnewsAsia 12 May 06
Experts eat crow over predictions of bird flu outbreak in Europe

PARIS : Experts who predicted a couple of months back that Europe could fall prey to outbreaks of bird flu as migratory birds returned from southern climes for spring have been forced to revise their threat scenarios.

No widespread epidemic has occurred, calming concerns across the continent that not so long ago had been whipped into near-psychosis by doomsday predictions.

"Nothing happened, and we're very happy about that," said Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, president of the Bird Protection League (LPO).

"That proves that while migratory birds can be vectors for (the bird flu strain) H5N1, they are not the main vector."

But while the menace has faded, specialists say it is still too soon to become complacent. "Complacency is very dangerous ... We don't need hundreds of wild birds to be infected, one could be enough to create a big problem!" the head of the bird flu unit in the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), Alex Thiermann, told AFP.

"From the information that we've had in the past with other influenza infections in wild birds, under the best of conditions, a very small number of the population is carrying the virus. "We need to make the assumption that H5N1 is behaving similarly."

It remains that H5N1 is a deadly disease, shown to be fatal in humans and with the potential to mutate into a form that could spark a worldwide pandemic.

Since 2003, tens of thousands of birds have been killed by the strain, and 115 people have died, according to the World Health Organisation. "We can't predict anything -- this virus mutates all the time," said Jeanne Brugere-Picoux, a professor at a French veterinary college in the Paris suburb of Maisons-Alfort. "You mustn't overlook the risk of some species, like ducks, being carriers that are apparently healthy but which transmit the virus over hundreds of kilometres," she said.

Thiermann said the absence of outbreaks as birds returned to Europe from Africa underlined the need for more research rather than cause for relief.

"We don't know enough about wild birds and there is a big need for a better understanding of the role of wild birds in avian influenza today and possibly in other emerging diseases in the future," he said.

The relatively small number of birds tested in Africa for the disease -- 7,500 -- was seen as a serious handicap to building reliable statistics on the spread of H5N1 among wild birds, according to groups such as Wetlands, a Dutch ornithological organisation.

But Thiermann also conceded that commercial poultry transport -- particularly that operating outside of legal channels and thus supervision -- was the main vector for infection, and a continuing source of concern.

"The illegal movement of animal and products and people have been the primary vehicle for the spread of the virus," he said, urging greater attention on that activity. - AFP /dt
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