150 MILLION POULTRY BIRDS SLAUGHTERED WORLDWIDE IN PAST FEW WEEKS

22 MILLION IN CHINA ALONE

ITALY CHICKEN SALES DOWN 70%

Hundreds of thousands of poultry birds are now being slaughtered every day on farms from Nigeria to Western Europe.

China reports eighth confirmed human death from bird flu infection.

Contamination from dead poultry now considered as cause of virus spread.

Chinese government says four of the twelve officially dead lived in areas where there was no cases of bird flu in poultry.

Last Friday, 35 farmers workers in the Shanxi province of China were put under quarantine and observation after a farm outbreak killed 15,000 birds.

From Italy comes reports that sales of all poultry are down 70 percent solely on the concern of contracting bird flu from eating the cooked meat.

Italian poultry industry losing more than $US7 million per day. Estimate of total damages from the avian influenza scare, and first round of infections in EU countries, is edging towards $US1 billion.

The Italian media have been accused of 'scaremongering' and spreading the fear. The Italian government, and Italian food writers and tv hosts, have been assuring people for months that even if a chicken or duck was mildly infected by the virus, the cooked meat would be safe to eat.

Such reassurances are clearly not working.