Bird flu kills 1,000 turkeys in outbreak on poultry farm
Valerie Elliott, Countryside Editor and Helen Nugent
timesonline.co.uk
Britain was on alert for bird flu last night after a thousand turkeys died of the virus at a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk.
Government vets have been at the farm, near Halesworth, for two days, testing for a range of illnesses. An H5 strain of bird flu had been confirmed by preliminary tests, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said last night. Further tests were under way to establish whether it was the H5N1 strain, which can be fatal to human beings.
A Defra spokeswoman said that birds in one shed had been suffering from an illness for a few days but the numbers had increased suddenly on Thursday and a private vet had called in government experts.
“The affected premises were put under restriction on Thursday evening and the appropriate contingency plan has been put into effect,” the spokeswoman said.
The restrictions will include a 2-mile (3km) surveillance zone around the plant, which will ban all movements of poultry, and a 6-mile protection zone in which all the poultry will be tested for the virus.
“When the additional laboratory results are known further action will be taken and all available information will be provided,” the Defra spokeswoman added.
Avian influenza is a disease of birds. While it can pass to humans, this is rare and requires extremely close contact with infected birds, particularly faeces.
Defra insists that, at this stage, there is no confirmation that this is a virus that has human health implications. Advice from the Food Standards Agency remains that properly cooked poultry and poultry products, including eggs, are safe to eat.
David Catlow, president of the British Veterinary Association, said that it would be premature to assume it was a case of the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu.
“We will have to wait for the birds to be tested until we can draw conclusions on this issue,” he said. “It is reassuring that all the correct processes and procedures are being carried out to find out what is going on.”
All avian influenzas (H1 to H16) can be low pathogenic but only H5 and H7 are known to become highly pathogenic.
This is the second time in less than a year that an East Anglian poultry farm has been affected by bird flu.
More than 30,000 birds were slaughtered after chickens near Dereham, Norfolk, tested positive for the H7 strain in April. One member of staff at the farm contracted the disease and was treated for an eye infection.
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