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EU Considers Ukraine Feather Ban on Bird Flu Fears |
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| BELGIUM: December 6, 2005 | ||
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BRUSSELS - The European Union is likely to slap a temporary ban on feather imports from Ukraine after the country detected its first outbreak of bird flu at the weekend, officials at the European Commission said on Monday.
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"We are planning a measure to restrict imports of feathers from Ukraine. It's the only item that we import from them - we don't take meat, or other products, because of their (Ukraine's) general disease situation," one official told reporters. The temporary ban, whose proposed length is still unclear, would be put to a vote when EU member state veterinary experts met later this week, he said. Ukrainian authorities detected the country's first outbreak of bird flu at the weekend in the Crimea peninsula, which juts into the Black Sea and is a major stopping point for migratory birds heading south for the winter. The strain has so far been identified as the H5 group and samples have been sent for investigation to a laboratory in Britain. Ukrainian troops are patrolling exclusion zones in the peninsula, with all birds in them ordered to be slaughtered. Ukraine had previously been declared free of bird flu, though the deadly H5N1 virus, endemic in poultry in parts of Asia where it has killed almost 70 people since 2003, had been discovered not far from its borders in Romania and Russia.
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REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
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