March 28, 2011
 

The Netherlands experiences bird flu

According to the Dutch government, tens thousands of chickens will be culled due to the discovery of a strain of bird flu at a poultry farm in southwestern the Netherlands, Kapelle, on Friday (Mar 25).

The Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation said that the bird flu was detected at a poultry farm in the municipality of Kapelle, located in the province of Zeeland. "It involves the H7 variant," it said.

The ministry said the exact subtype of the bird flu virus was unknown, but it noted that the low pathogenic variant is able to mutate into a highly pathogenic variant. "It will be known whether this involves a low or highly pathogenic variant on the afternoon of March 25," the ministry said.

In compliance with European rules, all 127,500 chickens at the poultry farm will be culled on Friday (Mar 25) and a movement ban for a radius of one kilometre (0.6 miles) has been announced and applies to poultry, eggs, poultry manure, poultry litter and poultry food.

The ministry said it believes the bird flu infection in Kapelle is due to the result of wild birds whose feces are contaminated with the virus. Depending on the variant involved, humans do not frequently get infected but there are fears the bird flu virus could mutate and spread among humans easily, thus, causing a deadly pandemic.

In 2003, the Netherlands was hit hard by an epidemic of the H7N7 bird flu strain, resulting in the cull of more than 25 million birds. It also infected at least 89 people, all except three had contact with poultry. One of the victims, a veterinarian, died after having close contact with infected poultry.