DISASTER is looming for Europe’s poultry. The European Union has just had its first outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in poultry, on a turkey farm in eastern France. It is unlikely to be the last. The virus has now been found in wild birds across Europe, and as spring migrants arrive from Africa virologists predict it could become endemic in European wild birds within two months.
Though effective vaccines exist to protect domestic birds from H5N1, the EU is refusing to allow their general use. Officials say that vaccination just masks the spread of the virus, making it diffcult to…
