Bird flu swanning around Germany

Health authorities in Germany say they have identified three more cases of the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu in swans, bringing the total number of wild birds now infected to nine.

According to the Friedrich Loeffler Animal Disease Institute, the latest cases were found near Leipzig in the eastern state of Saxony.

To date eight swans and a Canada goose have now been confirmed as having the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus.

At the weekend six birds were confirmed as being infected with H5N1 after they were found in a pond in Nuremberg in south Germany and were examined as part of a national testing programme; the bird flu cases are Germany's first in over a year.

Although experts are investigating whether the cases are related to recent bird flu outbreaks in Hungary and the Czech Republic, the Agriculture Ministry believes the incidents could be isolated.

Nevertheless poultry farmers in the Nuremberg region have been ordered to confine all poultry to closed stalls and a 21-day ban has been imposed on bringing poultry or poultry products in or out of the area, which is now a quarantine zone.

Last year 13 European Union member states had confirmed cases of bird flu, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Italy, Greece, Britain, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, France and Hungary.

Currently bird flu continues to spread across southeast Asia and has killed two people in Vietnam this month, the first deaths there since 2005.

According to the World Health Organisation, to date the virus has killed nearly 200 people out of over 300 known cases, but none of the victims were from Europe.

Millions of birds have also died as a result of the virus, either from the disease or by culling and experts continue to worry that the virus mutates into a strain easily spread by humans it will trigger a global pandemic.

To date Indonesia has the highest death rate from the virus.