The European Commission said on Tuesday that it had been informed of a confirmed case of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu string in a wild duck shot during a hunt near Starnberg, in Bavaria, Germany.
Germany is not taking restrictive measures given the fact that the hunt took place in January, said the Commission, the executive body of the European Union (EU).
During the duck hunt at the lake of Starnberg, samples were taken from 35 ducks and four Canada geese in the frame of routine surveillance for bird flu and one of these ducks has produced a positive result.
This is the first wild bird case of this type of disease in the EU in 2009. The last bird flu case with wild bird was reported in February 2008 in a Canada goose by Britain, where 11 birds were found positive. The last outbreak in poultry of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu in the EU was detected in October 2008 in Landkreis Gorlitz, Saxony, Germany.