Europeans are developing a mass phobia in connection with the threat of bird flu. According to the France-Presse agency, authorities in many countries where cases of bird flu have been registered in birds or domestic animals fear that psychiatrists will soon have to deal with the problem.
According to the agency, Europeans do not believe doctors who assure them that the chances of a person contracting bird flu are currently negligible. The public is protecting itself from the alleged bird flu epidemic as best it can. Despite experts' assertions that chicken that has undergone heat treatment is not dangerous, Europeans are increasingly excluding poultry dishes from their diets.
For example, Italians have almost stopped eating chicken. In particular, as soon as it became known about the first cases of wild birds dying from the H5N1 virus in Italy, demand for poultry meat here fell by 70%. Faced with losses caused by the boycott, Italian butchers immediately stopped buying chickens (and ducks too) from farmers. But even a widespread refusal to consume poultry meat has not led to a reduction in panic.
The same thing is happening in France. In some French cities, "at the request of parents", poultry meat is banned from being cooked in school canteens. The church has already intervened. The bishop of one of the southwestern departments specialising in chicken and foie gras production called on his flock not to give up chicken. "I ask all Catholics of the Landes department not to lose their heads, not to change their traditional customs and, as before, to eat chicken," said Bishop Philippe Breton in his message read out in churches at the end of last week. But it did not help.
In Bosnia, trade in poultry meat has almost completely frozen, immediately falling by 90%. In Greece, according to the association of chicken producers, consumption of this type of product has fallen by 75% in the past week alone (up to 80% in the Thessaloniki area). "If the process continues at this pace, then all poultry farms will have no choice but to close," the head of the association, Spyros Nonikas, complained to journalists. Fearing further escalation of panic among consumers, he, on behalf of the association, appealed to the management of all television channels in the country with a call for "the most balanced statements" on the delicate topic.
All other European poultry meat producers are already panicking: they are convinced that they are on the verge of complete destruction of a multi-billion-dollar market. The largest European producer of this product, the British company Doux, announced a drop in sales of 25-30% and the consequent reduction of 500-600 jobs in France (10-15% of the company's total staff).
Meanwhile, specially opened "red" telephone lines of European health ministries continue to be besieged by thousands of callers constantly demanding that they be given comprehensive instructions on how to reliably protect themselves from a bird flu epidemic. In Italy alone, more than 3,000 calls are received on the hotline every day, local media report.
People are not the only ones suffering from the fear of bird flu. Germans began throwing cats out onto the streets by the hundreds after it became known that a domestic cat had died from the H5N1 virus. And according to the local animal welfare society, some owners have begun handing over their pets for euthanasia.
In Russia, the threat of bird flu has become fertile ground for crime. In Karachay-Cherkessia, fraudsters have appeared who, posing as sanitary service employees, began confiscating poultry from private farmsteads supposedly for destruction in order to combat bird flu. Real employees of the veterinary and sanitary services, as assured by the head of the veterinary department of the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Nikolai Kirpanev, did not carry out such actions, reported Interfax. "The only recommendation currently coming from our services to poultry holders is to keep them in enclosed premises. No official services have carried out any seizure of poultry," he stressed.
Marina LEMUTKINA.
Gazeta.Ru