Turkey cull to stem outbreak

Holton: Britain moved to complete a cull of 160,000 turkeys yesterday after it became the latest country hit by a major outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus.

Workers wearing white protective suits, black gloves and masks loaded the turkeys into crates to be gassed following the discovery of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian flu on a farm at Holton run by Europe's largest turkey producer, Bernard Matthews.

Farm workers were offered anti-viral drugs and restrictions were imposed on the way birds are housed and moved.

The H5N1 virus has spread into the Middle East, Africa and Europe since it re-emerged in Asia in 2003 and outbreaks have now been detected in birds in around 50 countries.

It remains largely an animal disease, but can kill people who come into close contact with infected birds. It has killed 165 people over the past four years, a 22-year-old woman in Nigeria being the latest confirmed victim.

Mutation

Scientists fear the virus could spark a pandemic in which millions die if it mutates into a form that passes easily from person to person. For the moment, the impact is likely to be mainly on Britain's poultry industry, the second largest in the European Union after France.

Russia said it would ban British poultry imports from today to prevent the spread of bird flu.

The European Union's top health official yesterday said he was optimistic the bloc would be able to control bird flu this year despite outbreaks in Britain and Hungary.

"The virus is still around. We should never feel that we are safe. Hungary is dealing with it in a very efficient way. The UK is doing the same, but we will probably have more outbreaks," EU Health and Food Safety Commissioner Markos Kyprianou told reporters in Brussels.

"Last year we managed to control the disease. I'm optimistic we will be able to do the same again this year," he said.

Hungary detected H5N1 in a flock of geese last month, the first outbreak in the 27-nation EU this year.

Wild bird

It was not clear how the virus spread to the English farm. Experts said an infected wild bird was the most likely culprit.

Many countries are testing plans to deal with a flu pandemic should the virus develop into a more dangerous form. Japan, which has had four outbreaks of H5N1 at poultry farms this year, held a drill yesterday to test its preparations.

Staged in Tokushima prefecture in southern Japan it was based on a scenario in which two people develop symptoms of bird flu after returning from a country where the H5N1 virus has mutated into a form that passes easily from person to person.

Britain may face further outbreaks if wildfowl prove to be the cause of the latest case, a leading British virologist said.

"If it was from a wild bird then we could see more outbreaks," Nigel Dimmock of Warwick University said, explaining any infected wildfowl might still be in circulation.

Dimmock, who led a government review after an outbreak of flu among imported pet birds at a quarantine centre in late 2005, said it was unlikely the H5N1 virus would spread from any turkey infected on the farm in Suffolk.