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Sales of poultry in Italy plunged 70 percent on concern about contracting bird flu after the lethal H5N1
strain of the virus was found in the country, said Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori.
The industry is losing 6 million euros ($7.2 million) a day, which brings total damages in recent months
to 650 million euros, the Italian farmers association said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.
``The bird-flu psychosis is having devastating effects on the sector,'' the group said in the release.
Italians are among the most concerned in Europe about the spread of the deadly strain of avian influenza,
farmers' group Coldiretti said. Eighty-three percent of Italians say they are concerned about the impact of
the H5N1 virus compared with a European average of 67 percent, the group said.
Several wild swans tested positive for the lethal strain of avian influenza in Italy and Greece, an
indication that a virulent form of bird flu may be spreading in Europe.
Outbreaks in fowl increase the risk of human infections and the virus changing into a form that is more
contagious to people. Health officials and scientists have warned that poultry meat should be properly
cooked before it is consumed.
`Scaremongering'
``There was an awful lot in the early days of scaremongering by the media and it really did confuse
consumers. That is still evident, I believe, in southern Europe,'' Eric Reid, production director at Moy Park
Ltd. said in a telephone interview on Feb. 10. Moy Park is Northern Ireland's largest poultry processor and
it supplies poultry products to retail and foodservice customers across Europe, according to its Web site.
Shares of Roncadin SpA, the food company which owns Italy's biggest seller of frozen chicken, have lost
19 percent in the past three sessions, as bird flu spread in the European Union.
E-mail: sflanagan@sprintmail.com |
