Avian Flu

Western Europe has been preparing for months for the arrival of bird flu, with health officials urging calm in the face of the spreading virus. Apparently, some people weren't listening very well. "The feathered death -- it has landed," blared a headline from the Berlin tabloid BZ. "Bird flu psychosis," was how Italian television channel Rai News 24 described the national mood.

India and France both confirmed their first outbreak of H5N1 bird flu among fowl Saturday, and an Indian official said authorities planned to cull half a million birds to check the spread of the virus. Tens of thousands of chickens have died of bird flu in recent weeks in western India, and people suffering flu-like symptoms were to be tested for the virus, officials said. Saturday's announcement came as other nations fought to contain outbreaks of the virus.

The ravens at the Tower of London have been moved indoors to custom-built aviaries as a precaution against bird flu, the tower's raven master said -- even though the disease has not spread to Britain. According to legend, if the ravens leave the 11th-century fortress on the River Thames, its White Tower will crumble and the Kingdom of England will fall. King Charles II decreed in the 17th century that there must always be six ravens at the Tower.

Federal health officials have extended Chiron Corp.'s deadline to deliver bird flu vaccine so it that can make regular vaccine for the next flu season, the company said Friday. Chiron, of Emeryville, Calif., said it expected to complete about 70% of the U.S. order for bird flu vaccine before turning next month to producing the Fluvirin seasonal flu vaccine. The company said the extension came from the Department of Health and Human Services.

China today warned the public of a possible "massive" outbreak of bird flu, and said the country's agriculture officials were on high alert. The announcement came as China reported that two more people -- who had both been around sick or dead birds -- had died of the H5N1 bird flu strain, and that there was a new poultry outbreak in the country's east.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has been found in a cat in Germany, the first time it has been identified in an animal other than a bird in the middle of Europe, officials said Tuesday. Health officials urged cat owners to keep their pets indoors after the dead feline was discovered over the weekend on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen, where most of Germany's more than 100 infected wild birds have been found.

The dangerous strain of bird flu known as H5N1 has killed nearly half a million domestic fowl in southern Russia in the last month despite efforts to control the outbreak by culling poultry, the Emergency Situations Ministry said Wednesday. About 495,000 birds in southern Russian regions near the Caspian and Black seas have died since Feb. 3 from the virulent strain of bird flu, which can also infect humans, ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said.

Iraq said Thursday that it suspected a woman there had died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu, and Serbia said a dead swan was being tested to see whether it was that nation's first known case. The latest apparent cases came hours after U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said it was "just a matter of time" before wild birds and possibly poultry in the United States contracted H5N1.

Adding urgency to preparations for a possible influenza pandemic among humans, a top federal official said Monday that wild birds infected with a virulent strain of avian flu were expected to show up on the U.S. mainland later this year. "We assume wild birds will come to the United States sometime between now and the fall," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said in the most specific estimate yet by a senior official.

Israel detected its first cases of H5N1 bird flu, saying the virus had killed thousands of turkeys and chickens on two farms. Agriculture Ministry officials said tens of thousands of fowl in the infected areas and their surroundings would be culled and the carcasses would be buried. Israel was also testing dead fowl found in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.