Fear Borders on Hysteria as Bird Flu Hits Europe

Paranoia is rife as dead birds turn up in Europe
Paranoia is rife as dead birds turn up in Europe

While European governments aren't hitting the panic button as yet, the spread of bird flu has definitely got a lot of people fearing that the end is nigh. Bird flu psychosis is spreading faster than the virus itself.

It was a surprise that Germany's airports were not inundated with fleeing citizens; fighting each other for the last available seats to safety, panicked to distraction with only thoughts of escape passing through their fear-frazzled minds.

"The feathered death -- it has landed," blared a headline in the Berliner Zeitung newspaper heralding the arrival of bird flu in Germany last week along with, if the media were to be believed, the three other horsemen of the apocalypse.



Adding to the hysteria was the fact that if Germany were to empty its borders, where would the escapees flee to? Pestilence was everywhere. Not a corner of the globe was untouched. Poultry magnates considering the end of their empires must have seriously been considering investing their last euros in space tourism.