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Avian flu can have devastating effects on poultry farms and the entire economy linked to this activity.

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In addition, one can't exclude a transmission of the virus to man and a mutation which could cause a major epidemic of human flu, a pandemic.

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The European Commission and the EU member states have long since established rules and measures to apply whenever a disease outbreak occurs.

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The key word of the European strategy to protect against animal viruses, including avian flu, is prevention.

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In order to prevent the introduction of the disease into domestic poultry farms, it is essential that domestic poultry are kept separated by wild birds

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and also the contacts between farms, between domestic poultry farms are reduced to a minimum.

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On the farms, this means confining poultry and respecting several sanitary rules that this Hungarian farmer applies.

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We wash the wheels of vehicles, we store the crops in covered areas, we pay more attention to who's coming or going from the farm,

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we reduce the traffic to the farm much more than before, practically no one is coming in or out.

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Other solutions exist to prevent the spread of the virus to domestic poultry.

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Example, in the Netherlands, where an epidemic occurred in 2003.

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Here, vaccination is used more and more.

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Since the epidemic, people with domestic poultry asked us to vaccinate their birds to protect them from being infected.

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In order to combat bird flu at source, it's also necessary to keep a watchful eye on wild birds and the viruses they carry.

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Several European countries, including the Netherlands, have decided to step up the surveillance by collecting dead wild birds

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in order to detect more swiftly the presence of the highly pathogenic virus.

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7,000 voluntary observers, such as this one, are operating throughout the country.

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The samples of the migratory birds are then sent for analysis to the laboratories.

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In this reference lab in London, the number of samples analysed has gone from 10,000 to 120,000 in less than a year.

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It's multiplied by 12.

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The research programme we have here is nearly 50% of our total effort in working on avian influenza.

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So that demonstrates how important it is to actually be ahead of the virus, if we possibly can,

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and develop programmes so that we can better understand all of the aspects about the virus and its properties

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and the host population that it affects.

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All these measures to prevent, detect or contain the H5N1 virus in the EU

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have up to now managed to prevent the virus from spreading.

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The future evolution of the situation is difficult to foresee

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because the H5N1 virus is still present in many countries, for example in Asia.

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This is why the Commission and the Member States constantly review the state of the disease outbreaks in the world

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and adapt the surveillance and the control measures accordingly.

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For more information, visit www.fema.gov