Fear of Bird Flu Builds in Europe

Poultry sales plummeted and sales of Tamiflu soared Friday as the specter of bird flu came knocking on Europe's door.

"Panic! Dead Birds at Home, Too!" read a banner headline in 24 Chasa, a Bulgarian daily newspaper, even though the virus has been found only in Turkey and Romania.

Several nations have experienced a run on Tamiflu, the chief drug found to be effective against the deadly form of bird flu, called H5N1.

"Fifteen customers a day ask me for Tamiflu. It never stops," said Ludwig Ronsyn, a drugstore owner in Brussels. Supplies in Belgium have sold out, according to the drug's manufacturer.

In Hungary, some butchers said poultry sales plummeted this week.

With the confirmation Thursday of bird flu in Turkey, Western Europe has begun to brace for the virus' likely arrival.

Government officials spoke out Friday to quell the building anxiety and dispel the fear that Europe faces a crisis.

"We are not in a situation of pandemic," French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin said. "We must not give in to panic."

Health experts emphasized that the virus passes from birds to humans with great difficulty and that the risk of human-to-human transmission is lower still.

"Tens of millions of birds have been affected. But there have been only about 117 human cases in two years," World Health Organization spokesman Dick Thompson said. "This is a very difficult disease to move from animals to humans."

But the experts' message seemed muffled amid the increasing efforts by government agencies across Europe to limit the spread of the virus. The European Union banned imports of live poultry and packaged meat from Turkey and Romania, where ducks in the Danube River delta, a key wetlands along a major flyway between Russia and Central Europe, were found infected with a strain of the H5 virus.

Greece, Hungary and Germany have tightened customs controls at airports, seaports and borders to crackdown on illegal bird imports.

Researchers believe the virus is carried over long distances by migratory waterfowl. The birds first carried it north from its epicenter in Asia to Siberia, where it was detected this year, then south to Turkey and Romania on their fall migration to northern Africa.

Most bird species stop off for rest on their transcontinental journeys and, in the process, exchange viruses with other bird species.