EU fails to agree on bird flu jabs

European Union governments failed to approve plans to vaccinate poultry against flu, even as the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu was confirmed in a seventh EU country.

Animal health experts from the EU's 25 countries are to meet again on Wednesday to try and break the deadlock over how to protect Europe's poultry industry from the lethal H5N1 strain, the European Commission said.

France and the Netherlands have pushed for targeted preventive vaccination of certain birds as a precautionary measure. The French plan foresees the vaccination of ducks and geese in three risk areas starting on April 1. The French want some 900,000 birds to be vaccinated.

But other EU members questioned the effectiveness of vaccinating poultry, with the European Commission and several countries, including Britain, opposing the measure.

The vaccine may provide some protection against standard flu - not H5N1 in particular.

"The use of poultry vaccines to guard against the spread of H5N1 will inflict huge costs on poultry farmers, cause undue distress to poultry and, owing to the difficulties of catching free-range poultry, may not act as a blanket solution," said Neil Parish, a British Conservative member of the European Parliament.

German Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer said vaccination would be costly and logistically difficult since birds must be inoculated twice in a three-week period.

Seven EU nations - Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, France, Slovenia and Hungary - have reported the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu in wild birds.

There have been signs that European consumers are turning away from poultry.

EU Public Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou said the vaccinations were not fully effective and still require extensive surveillance.

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