Dutch cull chickens to stop bird flu spread
By Anna Mudeva
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch authorities culled 25,000 chickens at a farm infected with a low-pathogenic H7 bird flu strain on Wednesday and sealed off another 130 farms to prevent a major outbreak in one of the world's top poultry exporter.
The virus was reported on Tuesday in the central region of Gelderse Vallei, reviving bitter memories of the devastating outbreak of an H7N7 avian flu strain in 2003 that led to the culling of 30 million birds, about a third of the poultry flock.
"All 25,000 birds at the farm were culled last night," a spokeswoman for the Dutch Agriculture Ministry said.
"We are now taking samples of all farms (around the infected one) for testing and the first results are expected on Friday".
Authorities in the Netherlands, Europe's second biggest poultry producer after France, set up a 3-km (1.5-mile) safety zone around the infected farm and temporarily sealed off all the 130 poultry farms in the zone, ordering their chickens to be kept inside.
Trade and transport of live birds, meat and eggs as well as other live animals in and out the safety zone were banned.
All exhibitions and fares involving live birds have also been prohibited, the ministry said.
Authorities said strict measures were needed because the detected H7 strain, even though seen as less dangerous as the one in 2003, might mutate into a more aggressive form.
Dutch scientists and veterinarians are making more tests and investigations to establish the exact strain, the ministry said.
H7 bird flu in its highly pathogenic form can kill large numbers of birds and can occasionally infect people, although it is rarely fatal in humans.
The 2003 outbreak of H7N7 in the Netherlands infected around 90 people, including a veterinarian who died.
The main Dutch poultry farmers union said they were confident that authorities would not allow the virus to spread and did not expect a negative impact of exports.
"Of course we are worried but we are very satisfied with the measures taken so far," the union's chairman Jan Wolleswinkel told Reuters.
"We don't expect any import bans because it's not an outbreak, it's just one isolated case of a very low-pathogenic avian influenza," he said.
The 2003 outbreak caused overall costs for the sector, including related business, of up to 500 million euros (341 million pounds).
The Netherlands has never reported a case of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu strain found in several other European Union countries.
Dutch veterinarians and scientists believe the 2003 outbreak of the different H7 strain was caused by wild birds that infected outdoor poultry in the central Netherlands, then spread to the south and into Germany and Belgium where it raged on a lesser scale.
Scientists have suggested that migratory birds play an important role in the spread of the H5N1 virus, which originated in Asia and has killed 134 people worldwide so far.
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This article: news.scotsman.com
Last updated: 02-Aug-06 13:31 BST |
