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Spain finds first case of deadly bird flu virus
Fri Jul 7, 9:58 AM ET
The first case of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus recorded in Spain has been found in a wild bird in the northern Basque country, the agriculture ministry has said.
"The reference laboratory confirms the appearance of a case of avian flu of the highly pathogenic H5N1 type in a sample from a wild aquatic bird, a great crested grebe," the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said the stipulated measures had been taken, with a protection zone established of three kilometres (two miles) radius around the spot where the bird was found, and a wider surveillance zone of 10 kilometres.
Inside the zones the transport of domestic birds and the hunting of wild birds had been banned.
A ministry spokesman said earlier the grebe had been discovered in the province of Avala, and played down the danger.
The spokesman said several cases of less pathogenic H5N1 had already been detected in Spain but not made public.
Spain is the 20th country in Europe to report H5N1, according to the website of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), not including Russia and Turkey.
Experts fear bird flu cases will increase in Europe with the autumn migration season, though fears of a continent-wide epidemic in the spring proved groundless.
The main worry is that the H5N1 virus will mutate and become easily transmissible from human to human, causing a pandemic like the Spanish flu in 1918 which killed millions of people.
More than 120 people worldwide have died from bird flu since it re-emerged as a threat in 2003 -- most of them in Asia.
Also Friday veterinary authorities in Denmark said an H5 type virus of low risk had been found in a wild duck breeding centre near Viborg in the north of the country.
Several thousand birds have been slaughtered as a precaution, veterinary official Preben Willeberg told AFP.
Denmark recorded Europe's first case of H5N1 in domestic birds on May 18.
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