European foreign ministers will today hold an emergency meeting to discuss the threat of an influenza pandemic after it was confirmed that the bird flu virus had spread to Greece yesterday.
The European Commission confirmed last night that initial tests on a turkey on the Greek island of Inousses had tested positive for avian influenza.
The detection of the bird flu virus in Greece is the first reported case within the EU since poultry in Turkey and Romania tested positive last week. It is likely to heighten fears that migratory birds will spread the virus across the EU.
It is not yet known if the outbreak in Greece is the same deadly H5N1 strain that has infected poultry in Turkey and Romania. However, the Greek authorities have agreed to restrict the movement of poultry from the infected region as a precaution.
The H5N1 strain of the virus can pass from bird to humans and has killed over 60 people in Asia. However, health experts warn that it could mutate with the human flu virus, enabling it to spread directly between people and causing a global flu pandemic.
The European Commission said serological tests on the turkey had proved positive for avian influenza.
However, further tests would be required to confirm the findings and these should be completed later today, it added.
The outbreak in Greece was confirmed shortly after the commission warned that it was concerned member states had not stockpiled enough anti-viral drugs to treat a potential pandemic.
The World Health Organisation has recommended that states should be able to cover 25 per cent of the population with anti-viral drugs. However, it is believed that most EU states have not reached this target amid a worldwide scarcity of the most effective anti-viral treatment, called Tamiflu.
A commission spokesman declined to name EU countries that have failed to stockpile enough anti-viral drugs but recommended that all EU states needed to prepare for a possible flu pandemic.
US health secretary Mike Leavitt also warned yesterday of a lack of international readiness to deal with a bird flu outbreak. "It would be my assessment that no nation is adequately prepared for a pandemic avian flu." He added: "I believe that most nations are improving and preparation is increasing."
EU foreign ministers will meet in Luxembourg today to discuss the potential threat of a flu pandemic. They are expected to discuss a range of preventive measures, including a possible public-private partnership to boost production of Tamiflu. They will also discuss measures to tackle the bird flu problem in Asia, from where the H5N1 strain is thought to have spread to Turkey and Romania last week.
Romania's agriculture minister said yesterday that no new cases of bird flu were discovered in tests on 400 more birds from the country's Danube delta region.
Authorities were waiting, however, for results from a British laboratory on other samples from a swan and a chicken found dead in the village of Maliuc. There are also ongoing tests on birds in Croatia and Bulgaria.