EU prepares for spring migration

cctv.com 02-24-2006 09:15

The European Union has given the green light to its two largest poultry producers to vaccinate millions of chickens, ducks and geese against the bird flu. The precautionary vaccination programs in France and the Netherlands are the bloc's first against the deadly disease.

In France, the EU's top poultry producer and exporter, vaccination will start immediately for ducks and geese in the departments of Landes, Loire-Atlantic and Vendee. All are considered high-risk areas for bird flu. By April the 1st, when the program is due to end, around 900,000 birds should have been immunized.

In the Netherlands, the vaccination of free-range laying hens and hobby poultry, which are most at risk to contact with wild birds, is voluntary. It's an alternative to the requirement that these birds be kept indoors.

The Netherlands is small and densely populated, and experts say vaccination could be useful to limit the risk of bird flu spreading among its huge numbers of farmed birds.

But the EU is split on the merits of vaccinations to prevent against animal diseases. Producers fear the possible health risk posed by the drugs could turn consumers away and damage sales.

Until now, vaccination has been allowed only in limited circumstances. The European Commission, which is monitoring national programs to keep dangerous strains of bird flu out of Europe, has shied away from generalized preventive vaccination.

But vaccination is also being seen as an antidote to slumping poultry prices as shoppers steer away from meat they think might be "contaminated" by bird flu.

Meanwhile in Germany, a second test on a farm bird shows it did not have the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu. A duck on a farm on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen had initially tested positive for the disease. But a second test by Germany's national animal diseases institute was negative.

Editor:Chen Zhuo  Source:CCTV.com