November 10, 2005

UK farmers told to be prepared to bring poultry inside
 

Farmers should be prepared to move their fowl inside on short notice if bird flu appears in the UK, the government's chief vet said Tuesday.

Bird owners would be required to keep the fowl inside while experts analyse any possible flu outbreak, said chief veterinarian Debby Reynolds of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

"We want all poultry keepers to think in advance about the steps they can take to minimise disease risk in the event of an outbreak," Reynolds said.

She said if owners cannot move their birds inside, they would need to take measures to minimise the birds' contact with wild birds.

The government wants to minimise contact between poultry and wild birds should the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu be found in the UK.

Bird flu has killed at least 63 people in Asia since 2003. Spread by migrating wild birds, the dangerous H5N1 strain recently has been found in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania.

H5N1 is hard for humans to contract. But experts fear it could mutate into a form of flu easily transmitted between humans, and spark a human flu pandemic.