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Lethal bird flu continued its advance across Europe with more infected birds found in Germany and Italy, while in India seven people were under observation with symptoms of the disease.

The H5N1 strain of the flu which can be potentially fatal to humans was detected for the first time on the German mainland in the northeast state of Mecklenburg-Pomerania, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 61, animal health experts said.

In Italy, the Institute of Animal Health in the north eastern city of Padua announced the virus had been detected in a total of 16 birds in the country.

H5N1 was also confirmed in Tuzla and Navodari on the shores of the Black Sea in Romania, bringing to 33 the number of sites where it has been found nationwide, a veterinary official said.

Samples from the latest Romanian cases were sent to the European Union reference laboratory in Weybridge, Britain, to establish whether it was the highly pathogenic form of the H5N1 virus.

French authorities vowed to spare no effort in containing avian influenza after the country became the sixth in the European Union, and the most westerly, to be hit by the virus.

Europe's top producer and the world's fourth-largest exporter of poultry, France confirmed late Saturday that H5N1 had been identified in a wild duck found dead in the central-eastern Ain department.

Since 2003, over 90 people have died from bird flu in China, Southeast Asia, Iraq and eastern Turkey after contracting the H5N1 virus from infected poultry. No human infections have been reported in Europe.

While the virus cannot now be passed between humans, experts fear that if it acquires this ability it could cause a pandemic with casualties running into the millions.

French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand stressed that the dead duck was an isolated case, although food authorities said tests were continuing on some 15 birds found dead in various parts of the country.

"There will be no financial or economic obstacle in preparing France in the face of these risks," he said on Europe 1 radio, as the country's main farmers' union called for more state help in tackling the threat.

The plight of EU poultry producers, faced with plummeting sales, will be discussed by agriculture ministers Monday. Sales are down by 70 percent in Italy, 40 to 50 percent in Greece and 15 percent in France.

But in Brussels officials held out little hope in the short term.

"We're sympathetic but there is very little we, from the European budget, can actually do," a European Commission spokesman said.

The other EU member states so far to have detected the H5N1 virus are Austria, Greece, and Slovenia. There have also been cases in Bulgaria, Croatia, Ukraine and Russia.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel on Sunday surveyed measures being taken to combat bird flu on the Baltic island of Ruegen, as army disinfection experts deployed to curb the spread of the virus.

Germany has begun enforcing an order to keep all poultry indoors, joining the Netherlands, Slovenia, Denmark, France, Greece, Luxembourg and Sweden in doing so.

Britain, too, said the risk of bird flu there was "more likely" following the French case.

"It's not inevitable, but it is clear, obviously, that it's more likely than it was when it was further away," Agriculture Minister Ben Bradshaw said.

Nearly 35,000 birds will be culled from Monday morning in Romania, a top official for the Constanta region, Danut Culetu, told Mediafax news agency.

In India, seven people were under observation while up to half a million birds were being slaughtered Sunday after the presence of H5N1 was confirmed.

But fears that the virus caused the death of a farmer in the western Gujarat state proved unfounded. Authorities had earlier said he was a chicken farmer, but a health ministry official later revealed that he had not handled poultry.

In Nigeria, where there have been several major H5N1 outbreaks, UN health officials inspected an affected farm and assessed clean-up operations.

A team of World Health Organization (WHO) experts went through the Bakabo Farm on the outskirts of the northern city of Kano with local monitors to check the health of farm workers.

Egypt, the second African country after Nigeria to report the presence of H5N1, said the virus was spreading.

Since it was first detected in three Egyptian governorates Thursday, H5N1 had been reported in at least six others. Most cases have been in small domestic coops rather than major industrial poultry farms, according to an official from the supreme national committee to combat bird flu.

Bangladesh told its border guards to be extra vigilant to prevent the smuggling of live birds or poultry products from neighboring India, a minister said.

(Chinadaily.com via agencies February 20, 2006)