The H5N1 strain of bird flu was confirmed in Hungary and Croatia yesterday as the deadly virus spread around the globe, while EU officials considered measures to vaccinate millions of birds in France and the Netherlands.

In India, where officials are scrambling to contain a major outbreak in poultry, hundreds of people turned up for screening at medical camps in areas where bird flu has been reported.

At least 15 nations have reported outbreaks in birds this month, an indication that the virus, which has killed more than 90 people, is spreading faster.

Migratory birds are thought to be at least one way the disease is being carried and more than 30 countries have now reported cases since 2003, seven of them recording human infections.

Hungary said yesterday that tests showed the virus in three dead swans found last week, while Croatia also confirmed H5N1 had been found in a dead swan on an island in the Adriatic.

Bosnia confirmed its first cases of bird flu on Monday, while Malaysia said the H5N1 avian flu virus killed chickens near the capital.

In Brussels, EU animal health experts met to consider requests from France and the Netherlands, among Europe's biggest poultry producers, to be allowed to vaccinate millions of birds against avian influenza.

"The Commission is considering plans that were submitted last night by the French and Dutch authorities," a European Commission official told reporters.

"Every country that wants to do preventive vaccination has to submit a plan, explaining the controls that they will apply to distinguish between vaccinated and non-vaccinated animals," he said.

In London, the famous ravens at the Tower of London were brought inside to protect them from bird flu. Legend has it that if the ravens leave the Tower, where the Crown Jewels are stored, the Kingdom will fall.

Transmission risks remain

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that while no human cases of bird flu had been found in India, Egypt or Nigeria countries where H5N1 has been found in birds transmission risks remain as long as the virus is present.

"There is really no time frame. As long as the virus is circulating it could jump into humans," WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told a press briefing in Geneva.

But scientists say the virus has already developed the ability to infect more species of animals and the fear is H5N1 could eventually mutate to pass easily from human to human.

In India, 10 people have been quarantined as officials scrambled to contain a major outbreak of bird flu in poultry before it took hold in the world's second most populous nation.

So far, there are no confirmed human cases but thousands of people have been tested just in case.

"About 500 people have walked into makeshift medical camps in Navapur (town) to get checked for cough and cold since Monday evening," said T.P. Doke, health director of the western state of Maharashtra.

Doke said authorities had completed a door-to-door search in Navapur where 30,000 people had been examined. Another Maharashtra state official said about 300,000 birds have been culled so far with tens of thousands more to be killed.

Source: China Daily