Germany to tighten poultry import controls
BERLIN - Germany will tighten controls at all points where imported poultry enters its borders in a bid to avoid a bird flu outbreak, authorities said.'The biggest risk is posed by the illegal importation of poultry and food,' the secretary of state for the consumer ministry, Alexander Mueller, said.
He said special attention would be paid to poultry coming from Asia and Turkey, which is struggling with a bird flu outbreak, Mueller said after a meeting of a crisis cell of health and government experts.
The group was assembled this week to put in place emergency measures to prevent the spread of the deadly virus to Germany and to cope with a potential outbreak.
The experts decided against drastic measures like imposing quarantine on poultry farms or ordering the large-scale slaughter of birds.
Mueller said tests carried out on poultry and migrating birds in Germany have so far revealed no trace of the disease.
Source: AFX News Limited via Forbes
13 October 2005
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