The H5N1 virus

Officials in France have raised the bird flu alert to high after tests on three dead swans confirmed that the birds had died from the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.

The swans France's first case of the bird flu virus in more than a year were discovered at a pond in Assenoncourt in the Lorraine region of Eastern France close to the German border.

French officials have ordered that domestic fowl in the region be kept indoors and have set up a control zone in a half mile radius around the pond.

Speaking on French TV the health minister Roselyne Bachelot said that although France was not currently under threat of a flu pandemic "We have to be extremely vigilant because the large flu epidemic that appeared after World War I, also known as Spanish flu, was of avian origin".

Birds infected with the virus

The epidemic that she referred to was the flu outbreak between 1918 & 1919 which claimed around 30 million lives worldwide.

The virus has been reported in more than 30 countries worldwide during the last year. The deadly H5N1 strain of the virus has killed 200 people globally according to figures published by the World Health Organisation.

Although the virus is difficult for humans to contract scientists fear that it could mutate into a strain that is easily spread by people causing a worldwide pandemic similar to the one in 1918.

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