Germany raises bird flu alert 06/07/2007 00:00

6 July 2007

Berlin (dpa) - Germany raised its risk-preventive measures for bird flu after 38 wild birds tested positive for the lethal H5N1 strain in the east of the country.

The birds were among 100 found dead on an artificial lake between the states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt.

The alert was raised from "moderate" to "high," by the Friedrich Loeffler federal animal diseases institute, which carried out tests on the dead birds.

Last week, wild swans, geese and ducks were found with H5N1 in Leipzig in the eastern state of Saxony and in the southern city of Nuremberg in Bavaria.

French authorities also raised their alert to "high" on Thursday after three swans found dead in eastern France were found to be carrying the deadly H5N1 virus.

Some 190 people around the world have died of bird flu since 2003, mainly through coming into close contact with infected poultry, according to the World Health Organization.

Scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form easily transmissible between humans, which could touch off a global pandemic that would kill millions of people.

Last year, bird flu was confirmed in 13 European Union member states: Germany, Austria, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Britain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, France and Hungary.

A new outbreak was confirmed in the Czech Republic late last month. German officials said they believed the disease might have spread from there to Germany.

DPA

Subject: German news