'We are a bit powerless despite all the efforts over the last few years to reach a maximum level in sanitation,' said Jean-Michel Lemetayer, head of France's main farmers' union. 'What can you do about something that arrives from abroad through wild birds?'

Veterinarians and soldiers fanned out in pockets of the continent to check dead birds, cordon off affected areas and ensure that vehicles were not carrying fowl. Several countries have ordered all raised fowl kept indoors to avoid contact with migratory birds.

Even as governments sought to reassure the public that eating cooked poultry remained safe, poultry farmers said consumption has fallen and caused at least hundreds of millions of euros (dollars) in losses.

"This is a phenomenon that has now clearly taken a European dimension," Didier Houssin, a top French Health Ministry official in charge of bird flu tests, told The Associated Press by phone.

Culling Thousands of Domestic Birds

German Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen on Sunday, where authorities ordered a limited cull of poultry to halt the spread of H5N1 from wild birds to farm stocks.

Germany's Defense Ministry sent 40 soldiers specialized in countering biological and chemical weapons to the island to help disinfect vehicles, equipment and people leaving the affected area.

Officials were still assessing how many of the island's 400,000 domestic birds would be killed -- or when the cull would begin, said Till Backhaus, state agriculture minister for the region.

Italian authorities said Sunday that a wild duck found dead in central Italy and six more wild birds found in Sicily had tested positive for the highly virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu.

The new cases brought the total number of birds found in Italy with the deadly virus to 16.

Italian Agriculture Minister Gianni Alemanno, quoted in Il Messagero newspaper on Sunday, said he would ask EU officials in Brussels to allow