'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 €100 million (US$119 million) in loans and other guarantees to farmers. He said Italian farmers had lost €300 million (US$356 million) amid fears of the deadly bird flu strain.

In Romania, where H5N1 was detected in two villages last week, authorities wrapped up a cull of about 22,000 domestic birds in the village of Topraisar. Preliminary tests showed an H5 subtype of the bird flu virus in birds in two more villages near the Black Sea.

Human Death Toll Reaches 91

Bird flu first turned up in Asia, decimating poultry stocks and killing at least 91 people in Asia and Turkey since 2003, according to the World Health Organization.

Most human cases so far have been linked to contact with infected birds, but experts fear that the virus could mutate into a form that is easily transmitted between humans, sparking a pandemic.

Romanian authorities have warned that the country could see human cases of the disease because it has a large number of small household farms in poor rural areas without good sanitation.

Austrian authorities ordered all poultry and fowl kept indoors starting at midnight Saturday after signs that a wild swan found dead in Vienna had been infected with H5N1, health officials said.

France -- the EU's largest poultry producer -- became the latest EU country to report H5N1 cases, joining Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy and Slovenia. Outside the bloc in Europe, cases have been confirmed in Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.

Serbian authorities said veterinary teams would start traveling around the country Monday to make sure that the farmers were obeying orders to keep the poultry inside.

In Britain, which also has also been spared so far, Animal Health Minister Ben Bradshaw told British GMTV television that poultry keepers should remain ready to pull their birds indoors if an outbreak occurs.

'A Bit Powerless'

In France, the Agriculture Ministry confirmed the first case of H5N1 Saturday, but insisted that no raised birds had been affected.

France went on alert last week to try to ensure that bird flu does not spread from the wild to its 200,000 farms, which raise 900 million birds each year. All raised fowl have been ordered indoors or vaccinated as early signs that a H5N1 case had been discovered.

But some farmers remained concerned about the ability of governments to face up to nature.

"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?"

Some farmers in the southeastern French town of Joyeux, where the infected wild duck was found, began slaughtering their birds as a precaution _ and admittedly out of fear.

"I panicked. It hurts because these were purebred birds," said Joyeux retiree Gabrielle Josserand, 64, after killing her two geese and eight ducks. "But I chose to act right away."

"Did I do the right thing?" she asked.

Speaking Sunday on Europe-1 radio, French Agriculture Minister Dominique Bussereau said it would be "crazy" to slaughter raised birds near the town and pledged new state financial aid for affected farmers.