Death toll reaches 93 as bird flu hits India, France and Egypt

Health officials in India say they have found the country's first cases of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, following the death of chickens from the virus on poultry farms in the western town of Navapur.

Indian officials say the slaughter of as many as 500,000 birds in a 1.5-mile radius around the farms will begin immediately and trade in poultry in a 10-km radius around the outbreak will also be banned.

According to the Maharashtra state minister for animal husbandry, Anees Ahmed, at least 30,000 chickens have died in Navapur, a major poultry-farming region of Maharashtra state over the past two weeks, and the the H5N1 strain of the virus has been confirmed as the cause.

Initially officials suspected the birds may have died from Newcastle Disease, another deadly bird illness, but further tests revealed that H5N1 bird flu was responsible.

Federal government officials in India say eight people are being tested for bird flu in the same area, while another four including three children are being closely monitored.

Indian Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss says the country has adequate supplies of anti-bird flu drugs and the situation is under control.

India is one of the world's top producers of eggs in the world, and livestock and poultry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the country.

France, Europe's biggest poultry producer, has confirmed that a wild duck found dead last week near Lyon in a region famous for the quality of its chickens, had the H5N1 strain which was 99 percent identical to the original Asian virus.

Veterinarians are now checking birds within a three-kilometer (two-mile) security zone around the spot, in line with European Union emergency measures.

President Jacques Chirac has promised the government will be vigilant and ready to respond to a possible outbreak.

Dominique Bussereau the farm minister has reassured the French population that it is safe to eat chicken, but has cautioned people to avoid contact with wild birds and to refrain from touching dead ones.

Bussereau says as the disease has only been found in a wild bird, France was not planning at this stage to slaughter poultry, but says as many as 900,000 birds would be vaccinated against bird flu.

The death of a a 23-year-old market worker from the virus in Indonesia takes the death toll there to 19.

According to Hariadi Wibisono, an Indonesian Health Ministry official,the man who died on Feb. 10 at a hospital in Jakarta had been in frequent contact with poultry.

The only country with more human deaths than Indonesia is Vietnam, with 42.

The number of known human cases of the disease worldwide has now reached 171, with 93 deaths.

Experts estimate that two hundred million birds across Asia, parts of the Middle East, Europe and Africa have died of the virus or have been culled because of it.

To date the virus remains a bird disease and people are only affected when they have direct or indirect contact with sick poultry.

Experts however fear the virus will mutate into a form easily transferred between people causing a pandemic in which millions might die.

According to German authorities the H5N1 virus first confirmed in two dead swans in the country last week, has now spread across the Baltic Sea to the island of Ruegen, where another 28 dead birds were found to have H5N1, raising the total to 41.

The area is a popular resort and authorities have sealed off several areas to the public.

Austria has also found two cases of deadly H5N1 bird flu virus near Vienna, raising the total number of cases there to seven and prompting a nationwide order to confine poultry indoors.

In Bulgaria a man was placed in isolation and tested for bird flu after two of his ducks died, but apparently he is not at present showing signs of the disease.

Bulgaria which detected its first outbreak of the H5N1 strain in a wild swan on the Danube River near the Romanian border at the end of January, has stepped up measures to contain the virus.

Bird flu has also reached Egypt, which reported its first cases of H5N1 last week on a chicken farm near Cairo.

Authorities there have culled all 10,000 birds, while new cases were diagnosed among birds kept at homes or on roofs in three new provinces.

The Egyptian government has imposed strict measures and banned the movement of live birds across provincial borders for the next 15 days.

It has also ordered the removal of all unlicensed chicken pens from houses and banned the sale or slaughter of live birds in street markets.