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 Seagulls fly over Ohrid lake near the border with Macedonia near the city of Pogradec, about 160 km (100 miles) from the capital Tirana. A German minister claimed that deadly bird flu was moving closer to infecting humans in Europe after two more cats died of the virus, while China reported its 10th human fatality. (AFP) |
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A German minister claimed that deadly bird flu was moving closer to infecting humans in Europe after two more cats died of the virus, while China reported its 10th human fatality.
And Albania became the latest European country to report an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu strain, as international veterinary experts warned that the United States, Canada and Australia will probably not escape the ever-spreading disease.
China said on Wednesday that a nine-year-old girl had become the 10th person to die from bird flu, bringing the global death toll since 2003 to 96.
In Germany, Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer said late on Tuesday the discovery of the dead cats a week after the first feline infection in Germany signalled a heightened risk of infection for humans.
"This means that the virus is not confined to a single case of a mammal but has spread to several cases. Therefore, bird flu has clearly moved closer to humans," he told Bayerischer Rundfunk radio.
The two cats were found in the same area of the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen as a cat discovered dead last week, which proved to be the first mammal in Europe to be infected with the virus. The first cat is believed to have eaten infected birds.
However Germany's national veterinary laboratory, the Friedrich Loeffler Institute, said the risk of the first case of human infection in the European Union had not risen as a result of the discovery.
The World Health Organisation has said there is no evidence that cats can be involved in the spread of the disease.
Meanwhile the deadly H5N1 bird flu that has moved from Asia to Europe and Africa will probably extend its reach into other continents, the head of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), Bernard Vallat, said Wednesday.
"The likelihood that this strain will appear in Australia is very high," Vallat said, adding that "the possibility was also very high in the United States and Canada."
The three countries "had done rather advanced analyses and they are pessimistic" about escaping bird flu contamination, he told French lawmakers during a hearing on bird flu in Paris.
Earlier this week WHO director-general Lee Jong Wook warned again of a global pandemic if the virus mutated into a form that could be easily spread between humans.
Currently, humans are believed to be contracting the virus from poultry.
The girl who died in China was from the eastern province of Zhejiang, which has not recorded any outbreak of bird flu. Reports however said she had gone to a neighbouring area to visit relatives who were keeping infected chickens.
Her death came just days after that of a man in southern China, raising fears of the virus spreading to Hong Kong.
China's vice agriculture minister Yin Chengjie warned that the country faced the danger of more outbreaks of bird flu.
"We are coming into a period where the bird flu will be highly transmissible. As the weather warms up, more wild birds will be migrating and it will be easier for the bird flu to be transmitted to a wider area," Yin said.
Albania's first case was discovered in a chicken near the coastal town of Saranda, about 50 kilometres (31 miles) north of the Greece, Agriculture Minister Jemin Gjana said.
Four new cases of the highly pathogenic H5 bird flu virus have been confirmed in ducks in Sweden, bringing the total number to 10, the Swedish Board of Agriculture said on Wednesday.
Researchers have however yet to determine whether the Swedish ducks died from the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the most aggressive form of the virus that has been lethal to humans.
In Poland, authorities have isolated some 50 wild swans and placed them under observation in an aviary some 50 wild swans at Torun, in northern Poland, where three birds were found dead of the H5N1 virus.
The head of the OIE took the European Union to task for not coming through with 122 million dollars in aid for countries affected, particularly in Africa, that was promised at a bird flu China in Beijing in mid-January.
