By David Evans PARIS, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Europe may see more cases of H5N1 bird flu this winter but the situation is not as bad as last year and there was no need yet for any bans on outdoor poultry, a top animal health expert said on Monday. Britain's first case of H5N1 in farmed birds was detected at the weekend, putting continental Europe on alert for new outbreaks of the fatal poultry virus after last winter's crisis. "It's normal to expect more outbreaks, but based on the information we have at the moment, we can expect far fewer cases than we had in the past," Bernard Vallat, head of the World Animal Health Organisation (OIE), told Reuters. "We're not finding dead wild birds. The wild bird population may be infected but in a way that is extremely different to last year," he said in a telephone interview. Bird flu swept through Europe last winter, prompting many countries to order poultry to be kept inside and sparking a sharp drop in poultry sales, plunging the sector into crisis. Scientists have suggested that migratory birds play an important role in spreading the H5N1 virus, which originated in Asia and has killed more than 160 people worldwide since 2003. However, it remains essentially a poultry disease and experts say properly cooked meat and eggs pose no health threat. Europe has seen far fewer cases this winter. Other than Britain, Hungary is the only other country to record an outbreak at a farm this year. The Netherlands was quick to react to the case in eastern England and on Monday ordered commercial poultry to be kept indoors, citing the proximity of the outbreak to Dutch farmers. "They are applying the principle of precaution. These are decisions that are more political than technical," Vallat said. Other European countries said they were reviewing the risk in light of the UK case but few were expected to re-impose bans. "It is obvious the measures adopted last year to avoid the introduction of the virus into domestic birds are not yet justified by the situation," Vallat said. He said there was not yet enough information to tell how the virus had been transmitted to the British turkeys, but either wild birds or some kind accidental introduction through feeding stuff, vehicles or people's clothes was possible. However, he noted that the two recent cases in Europe followed a bout of colder weather in January that may have caused wildfowl to move from their normal habitats.
