EU health ministers meeting to discuss the bird flu crisis in Vienna agreed to launch a public awareness campaign to ease growing fears over health and food safety as the virus spreads rapidly across Europe, write Eithne Donnellan and Jamie Smyth.
The Tánaiste Mary Harney acknowledged that it now seemed inevitable that avian flu would reach Ireland.
As the EU meeting took place, the UN confirmed that the deaths of an Iraqi girl and her uncle from bird flu in January. They were caused by direct contact with sick poultry and not from any mutation in the deadly H5N1 virus which could lead to a human-to-human epidemic.
Meanwhile, Japan announced a ban on all imports of French poultry products after bird flu killed thousands of turkeys at a farm in eastern France. The temporary ban includes imports of poultry meat and all liver products.
On the need to prevent panic and keep the public fully informed EU health commissioner Markos Kyprianou said national health and media experts would launch a campaign that would be co-ordinated by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Ms Harney announced that the Department of Health has ordered 400,000 doses of an unlicensed vaccine that, it says, could offer some protection against the H5N1 flu strain as an emergency measure.
It will be stockpiled in preparation for a feared flu pandemic which could possibly be sparked off by the H5N1 strain of avian flu, that has claimed more than 90 lives, mainly in southeast Asia.
The vaccine will be kept for at- risk groups such as the elderly, children and healthcare workers, the Minister said yesterday.
The supply which was ordered will vaccinate 200,000 people. No clinical trials have yet been completed on the vaccines, which are due to be delivered in May and October.
The purchase of the vaccine was made possible through the co- operation of the British authorities, which ordered 3.5 million doses of the vaccine from the international pharmaceutical companies Baxter and Chiron at a cost of €49 million.
Ms Harney said the vaccine would only be given in an emergency situation and people would not be forced to avail of it.
The World Health Organisation has warned of an increasing risk of a global flu pandemic caused by the possible mutation of the bird flu virus into a form of influenza that could pass easily between humans. Experts are unsure, however, on whether the new H5N1 vaccine would offer any protection against a new strain of the virus if it mutated.
"This is the vaccine for H5N1. Obviously it's not a vaccine for a pandemic. We wouldn't be able to produce a vaccine until we know the exact strain and that would take four to six months after a pandemic occurred," the Tánaiste said.
She said there was a very low risk of it being transmitted to humans. It was safe to eat poultry, she added.
Health ministers ate chicken for their lunch in Vienna in an attempt to highlight its safety.
When Ms Harney was asked if it was inevitable that avian flu would arrive in the Republic she said: "Well all the experts say it's inevitable."
Dr Ulrike Engels-Lange at Baxter International, said the H5N1 vaccine was currently a "candidate vaccine" because no clinical trials had yet been completed on the drug. She said it would be up to the Government to decide if it used the vaccine before the trial process was complete and it had obtained a licence.