European Union have strategies for bird flu

The World Health Organization said only four out of its 52 European members, including Tajikistan, had no plan. Europe is making "significant progress" in planning for a flu pandemic, international health experts have said.

The three other countries will be named later on Wednesday at a meeting in Copenhagen.

Experts say a flu pandemic is likely to happen, probably from a mutation of the H5N1 bird flu virus, reports BBC.

According to Reuters China said a fresh outbreak of bird flu was free of any human infections, but three people on a French island off Africa were being tested on Wednesday in what were thought to be the first suspected human cases outside Asia.

"These three people who all traveled to Thailand have visited a bird zoo where they had come into contact with birds," French Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said of the tourists who were now back home on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion.

"Initial tests have been done there and these came out positive," he said, but fuller results would only be ready on Thursday. "For the moment, these are only suspected bird flu cases. Nothing is confirmed."

Italians are at no risk from chicken meat or eggs because of bird flu, the Italian Health Ministry said on Wednesday.

"There is no scientific evidence that eating poultry or eggs can transmit the disease to humans - even when they come from infected birds," the ministry said.

Consequently, a ban on bird meat or eggs "has no justification," the ministry said.

The ministry recalled that people can only get bird flu if they come into contact with infected animals, wild or from farms, or their droppings, reports ANSA.

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