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Europe on alert over bird flu pandemic

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Europe on alert over bird flu pandemic

Health experts across Europe are on alert, anxiously monitoring human bird flu to see if efforts to contain the virus can stop it spreading to the European Union.

Confirmed cases of the deadly H5N1 strain in three people living near Turkey’s capital Ankara, and more suspected cases in eastern Turkey, prompted EU experts to widen an existing ban on imports and to review existing EU-level surveillance efforts.

But a European Commission spokesman emphasised yesterday that there was still no evidence that the virus had become transmissible directly between humans.

The EU banned imports of live birds and poultry products, including feathers, from Turkey, last October, during the last bird flu outbreak.

As of yesterday, imports of untreated bird feathers were also banned from countries bordering eastern Turkey - Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Syria, Iran and Iraq.

Soure: dailymail.co.uk

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