Dutch Allow Domestic Poultry Outdoors

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) _ The Netherlands' Agriculture Ministry lifted an order keeping all domestic poultry indoors on Monday, as fears over an outbreak of bird flu eased. <br/><br/>Among their

Monday, May 1st 2006, 10:24 am

By: News On 6

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) _ The Netherlands' Agriculture Ministry lifted an order keeping all domestic poultry indoors on Monday, as fears over an outbreak of bird flu eased.

Among their immediate neighbors, only the Netherlands and Belgium were spared confirmed cases of wild birds infected with the H5N1 strain that is potentially lethal for humans. Germany, Britain, Denmark and France, all reported cases.

The Agriculture Ministry attributed that to a mix of good luck and good planning.

``Naturally there were the measures we took, and maybe that had its effect, but you can also say we were just lucky,'' said ministry spokeswoman Nynke van der Zee.

More than 13,000 dead wild birds have been tested in the Netherlands since February, and none have showed signs of H5N1, Van der Zee said.

The Dutch ruffled feathers in Brussels in August 2005 by acting first to order all commercial birds indoors without waiting for European guidelines. The European Union Commission said then that the move was an ``overreaction,'' but later ordered similar measures.

At least 113 humans have died from H5N1 since 2003 as it spread from Asia to Europe and Africa.

The Dutch skittishness was caused in part by a recent memory of another kind of bird flu: in a major outbreak of the H7N7 strain in 2003, more than 30 million Dutch birds were culled, 89 humans were infected and one veterinarian died.

But with the country lying along the same migratory routes on the North Sea coast as Germany and Denmark, many experts assumed it was only a matter of time before the disease turned up in the Netherlands.

``Why no dead swans in Holland? We really do not know,'' said Juan Lubroth, head of the Infectious Disease Group for the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization.

``The more we know about avian influenza, the less we're surprised by anything. The experts are still learning,'' he said.

``We'll be watching what happens in Central Asia and China this spring and summer, and then we'll see what the autumn brings,'' he said.

Virologist Ab Osterhaus, who advised the Dutch government on precautionary measures, told Dutch NOS television the relief may not last long.

``I think that we'll have the same problem again in July or August,'' he said. ``We can't predict it exactly, but this is a problem that we're going to have to very much hold reckoning with in the coming years.''

Switzerland also lifted its indoor order Monday. Germany has said it will keep its birds indoors until at least May 12. The first infection of commercial stocks was found on a French turkey farm in February, and France is lifting quarantines on farms in the stricken Ain region on a case-by-case basis.