By Emmanuel Jarry PARIS, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Globalisation and climate change will spread animal diseases even faster and Europe should step up efforts to protect people's health and income, France's farm minister said. "We must prepare ourselves to face more and more emerging pathogens, viruses, diseases, that can attack plants, animals and sometimes humans," French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. "These diseases travel by transportation via boats, planes or travellers themselves and global warming will speed up and worsen this phenomenon," he added. Barnier was echoing warnings by the Paris-based world animal health body OIE earlier this month, which stressed that diseases were travelling wider due to globalisation, international trade and global warming. The OIE pointed to the bluetongue virus that can now be found in northern Europe when it was normally hitting hot countries. The virus entered Europe via the South, carried by winds from Tunisia and then moved to northern Europe where it ravaged cattle and sheep, it said. In France the virus has spread throughout the country, prompting the farm ministry to extend a nation-wide vaccination campaign in mid-December last year. EUROPEAN ANSWER Barnier, who is due to leave the French government in May to stand in the European Parliament elections, said the objective was to vaccinate all French cattle and sheep against two serotypes of the disease. It would amount to 90 million doses. Bluetongue disease does not affect humans and there is no risk of contracting it through food, but it severely harms animals, provoking inflammation of the mucous membranes, congestion, swelling and haemorrhages. Farmers are often forced to kill their animals, leading to a drop in income. "This is one of the most important sanitary crises that we had to face in a long time," Barnier said. Only European-wide responses could succeed against animal diseases, he said, calling for more efforts in research, prevention and cooperation with Mediterranean countries. The European Commission in October proposed extra funding to help the 27-member bloc tackle the bluetongue virus in 2009, raising the total amount allocated for vaccination in member states to 152 million euros ($201.4 million). (Writing by Sybille de La Hamaide, additonal reporting by Jeremy Smith in Brussels, Editing by Peter Blackburn)
Afghan President Hamid Karzai (L) observes as a doctor administers a polio vaccination on a boy in Kabul January 11, 2009. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani (AFGHANISTAN) ...
