Dangerous bird flu strain found in northern Cyprus
TERESA KÜCHLER
30.01.2006 @ 10:33 CET
The most dangerous strain of bird flu has hit the Turkish part of Cyprus, the European Commission announced over the weekend.
The presence of the potentially deadly H5N1 bird flu strain in the Turkish Cypriot north was confirmed by the European Commission on Sunday (29 January), after it received test results from the EU Community Reference Laboratory for Avian Influenza at Weybridge in the UK.
With the latest discovery in northern Cyprus, bird flu is one step closer to the EU (Photo: EUobserver.com)
The H5N1 virus was detected in a dead chicken in a village near Famagusta on the eastern coast of Cyprus early last week.
The commission immediately ordered a freeze on transfer of live animals or animal products across the island's Green Line border between the north and the south and to the EU as a whole.
The commission on Sunday also sent two veterinary experts to northern Cyprus to investigate the disease on the ground, and announced that the EU would be ready to assist with surveillance if needed.
The Cypriot authorities ordered farmers to place poultry indoors, and strict checks were introduced at crossings between the Turkish Cypriot north and the Greek Cypriot south of the island.
EU best prepared for pandemic
The discovery of the lethal bird flu strain is likely to spark further debate about EU preparedness for a possible outbreak of a human to human bird flu pandemic inside the EU.
Health commissioner Markos Kyprianou sought to create calm last week, claiming the union is well-prepared.
"The European Union is the best prepared area in the world to confront a deadly virus pandemic, and this also covers Greece and Cyprus," he told news agencies in Greece.
The European Commission announced earlier this month that it will extend its monitoring of wild birds and poultry until the end of the year, and will also invest some €2.4 million in funding for laboratory testing.
Under the Brussels scheme, EU member states should submit national surveillance programs to the commission to receive funding.
The commission has also set up common criteria for member states' plans, containing guidelines for sampling and testing of birds.
Bird flu has killed at least 83 people since 2003, according to World Health Organisation figures.
Experts fear that the virus may mutate, enabling it to spread easily among humans and sparking a pandemic, but so far no case of human to human spread of the lethal virus has been discovered.
