November 19, 2007

UK completes poultry cull for bird flu

Nearly 29,000 poultry have been slaughtered in Norfolk and Suffolk to prevent the spread of highly contagious bird flu, according to UK's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

The slaughter of the 28,600 birds was completed after the cull finished at two Norfolk farms that had "dangerous contact" with the site of the original H5N1 outbreak at Park Farm in Redgrave, near Diss.

Defra says tests for the virus on birds from the farms at Bridge Farm in Pulham, near Diss, and Stone House Farm in West Harling, near Thetford, and those culled last week at Hill Meadow Farm, Knettishall, near Thetford, are continuous.

A total of 5,500 free-range turkeys were slaughtered at Grove Farm in Botesdale in Suffolk on Friday after 50 birds were found dead but they later tested negative for the disease.

The lack of any new outbreaks of the disease so far is good news for the poultry industry as Defra officials have said that they would have expected to have found further evidence of the virus if it had spread.

There is also a ban on shooting within 500 metres of building occupied by commercial free-range poultry within the 3-kilometre protection and 10-kilometre surveillance zones.

Norfolk County Council trading standards team has been delivering information packs to 70 registered poultry keepers inside the 10-km surveillance zone.