Deadly Bird Flu Strain Reaches Sweden

Bird flu hit a ninth European Union country today with the discovery of two dead ducks in Sweden.

The Swedish authorities notified the European commission of confirmed cases of the H5N1 virus in two dead wild ducks.

Samples from the birds were dispatched to the EU laboratory in Weybridge, Surrey, for further tests.

A commission spokesman said Sweden had already triggered the obligatory control measures that apply in any member state that finds bird flu, limiting movements of poultry within six miles of the outbreak.

The deadly strain of the virus has now been confirmed in Greece, Italy, Austria, Hungary, Germany, Slovenia, France and Slovakia.

Earlier, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, said he feared bird flu could become endemic in the UK.

"I would anticipate that avian flu will arrive at some point in the UK. We also have to anticipate that it will be here for five years plus. We are talking about the possibility of this disease being endemic here in the UK as it did in China. It is a long-term factor," Sir David told the BBC.

He also ruled out the use of the currently available bird flu vaccines in the event of a UK outbreak, but conceded that these may have to be used if the outbreak were widespread.

"The Chinese have adopted the position of mass vaccination, and if it became so widespread here, we might have to go down that route, even with the vaccination not being very good," he said.

Sir David added that he expected bird flu to reach UK shores within months, rather than days or weeks, owing to the pattern of migratory paths.

Yesterday, he said the existing H5N1 inoculation would mask signs of the virus in birds but not prevent its spread. Rare breeds kept in zoos would be the only birds for which vaccines would be feasible, and the inoculation of organic or free-range birds would not be recommended, he said.

Elsewhere, it was confirmed today that bird flu had infected a cat in Germany in what is the first case of a non-avian mammal infection in Europe.

"We know that mammals can become infected with H5N1," said Maria Cheng, a World Health Organization spokeswoman. "But we don’t know what this means for humans.

"We don’t know if they would play a role in transmitting the disease. We don’t know how much virus the cats would excrete or how much people would need to be exposed to before they would fall ill."

The virus had proved deadly to tigers and snow leopards in a Thai zoo after they were fed chicken carcasses, and big cats had died from H5N1 in Thailand in 2003 and 2004, she added.

"That has been one of the features of H5N1: that it has been able to infect a pretty wide variety of mammals," Ms Cheng said.

In Hungary, another swan found dead north of Budapest tested positive for an H5 type of bird flu, officials said. The country reported its first bird flu cases in three swans earlier this month.

The authorities in Slovenia also said today that EU tests had shown H5N1 in three more dead fowl. The three swans were found dead in the river in Maribor, near the Austrian border.

Slovenia’s previous bird flu cases - several swans and a grey heron - were found in the same area, veterinarian officials in Zagreb said.

Nanvy Morgan, an analyst at the UN’s food and agriculture agency, said she expected to see poultry "consumption shocks" around the world this year following the spread of bird flu.

Producers in Europe, Africa, the US and Brazil were all having to deal with falling demand and export prices, she said.

The UN agency advised that poultry products, properly cooked at or above 70C throughout, were safe to eat, she added.