(CNN) -- The European Commission has called an emergency meeting of its food and animal health committee for Friday after it confirmed that the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu has been found in Turkish poultry and suspected of being present in Romania.If confirmed in Romania, it would be the first instance of the deadly strain known to have reached Europe, and would bolster the theory that it may be spread by migrating birds.Friday's emergency meeting, attended by health experts, will look at the risk that migratory birds might pose for the EU.H5N1 in its current form does not easily infect humans, but officials fear it may mutate into a more easily transmissible strain, resulting in a global pandemic.In a written statement, the EU said the presence of the H5 virus in Romania was confirmed Wednesday night, but it was not clear whether it was the deadly N1 strain, which has infected 117 people in Asia, proving fatal in 60.An EU laboratory determined Thursday morning that the avian influenza virus found in Turkey "is H5N1 closely related to a virus detected in a wild bird in central Asia a few months ago."An EU health official in Brussels said laboratory work on the Romanian case would be completed Friday."If it's the Asian strain, that would seem to confirm that it's being spread along the migration paths by migratory birds from Siberia into southeastern Europe," said the official, who said he could not be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the news media.The Turkish government said Thursday it has contained the outbreak of the H5N1 virus, which was detected after 1,800 turkeys died on a farm in Kiziksa, 120 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Istanbul, The Associated Press reported.Authorities have destroyed some 8,600 turkeys and chickens in the area and placed the village under quarantine, but hundreds of birds apparently escaped the destruction."Normally it would be over, but a few people are hiding their chickens," one veterinary official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AP. Also Thursday, the EU announced it would ban imports of live birds, poultry meat and other poultry products from Romania. Imports of live birds and feathers from Turkey have been banned since Monday.The commission's Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health was to hold an emergency meeting in Brussels on Thursday to discuss preventive and bio-security measures at poultry farms across the EU.Health officials worry that, if the avian influenza virus were to combine with a normal human strain of influenza virus inside a person infected with both, a hybrid could emerge that would have lethality of more than 50 percent and the ability to spread easily from person to person.To limit the possibility of "reassortment," public health officials have recommended that people in regions known to harbor avian influenza get vaccinated against human forms of influenza."What this virus can't do now is move easily from person to person," said Dick Thompson, a spokesman for the World Health Organization, in Geneva. "We worry that it could develop this characteristic of human-to-human transmission."Humans appear to become infected with the virus not by eating infected poultry, but by contacting sick or diseased birds or preparing them for consumption."Rapid defeathering causes dust and viral particles to fly up," Thompson said. "We believe those particles are inhaled and that's how people become infected."He added, "It's very difficult to stop the movement of this virus now, but it's possible to eliminate it from close proximity to humans, and that's what the animal-control measures will be directed at."Sales of antiviral drugs, which might also confer protection, have outpaced manufacturers' ability to make them.EU Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou announced in Brussels that the EU planned to set aside $1.2 billion to help make and distribute anti-virals and vaccines "in case of a pandemic." In South America, Venezuela said on Thursday it temporarily banned imports of poultry and poultry products from neighboring Colombia after a mild strain of bird flu was found in Colombia earlier this week. Venezuelan Deputy Agriculture Minister Patricia Febres told Reuters the measure would be in place until Colombia could guarantee its poultry was free of the flu virus. The H9 strain found in Colombia is not related to the H5N1 sickness that has killed dozens of people in Asia. Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.