April 27, 2006

Britain culls 35,000 birds in new bird flu outbreak

Government authorities in the UK scrambled Wednesday (26 Apr) to order the slaughter of 35,000 chickens on a poultry farm in Norfolk after dead birds were confirmed to have the bird flu virus.

Norfolk is the epi-centre of Britain's poultry industry.

Preliminary tests on chickens at a farm identified the virus as a H7 strain and not the H5N1 virus.

Officials have not determined how the birds may have become infected, a spokeswoman from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.

Tissue samples and carcasses of dead chickens recovered from the farm were sent to the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, Surrey where scientists confirmed the subtype of virus and investigated whether it was a highly pathogenic strain. Of the many different strains of avian flu, the H5 and N7 variants are the most contagious.

Authorities imposed immediate restrictions around the poultry farm, prohibiting the movement of any produce on or off the site to ensure there is no threat to neighbouring farms, a Defra spokeswoman said.

The H7 strain of avian flu was last detected in Britain in 1987 and outbreaks of H7 avian flu have become more common since then in other countries, most notably in the Netherlands and America.

While H7 versions of the disease can be deadly among poultry, outbreaks in people have been less serious than those of H5N1.