Bird f lu warning: Owners told to lock up poultry
POULTRY owners were ordered to lock their flocks indoors yesterday to prevent an outbreak of avian flu.
A highly pathogenic strain of the virus, H5N8, has been found in dead migratory birds in 14 countries across Europe including Poland, Germany and France.
No cases have yet reported in the UK.
Order
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However, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) ordered poultry owners to keep birds inside for 30 days or take steps to separate them from wild birds.
The order applies to commercial poultry farmers and anyone who keeps birds in England, including those who keep a few chickens in the garden. Similar restrictions have been introduced in Scotland and Wales, but not Northern Ireland.
The order has forced freerange egg farmers such as Sarah Slade, who runs Rosamondford Farm in East Devon, to keep chickens inside.
But Mark Gorton, who runs a free-range turkey and chicken farm in Norfolk, said it was fortunate the situation had not occurred earlier in the run-up to Christmas.
“Most of the Christmas turkeys are done,” he said. “They’re safely packed and in the cold stores, ready for Christmas dinners. It could have been worse if it happened two or three weeks ago, and in this sense Christmas dinner is still safe.”
And he said the order was a “responsible thing to do to protect our chickens.”
The British Poultry Council also insisted there was no threat to supplies of Christmas turkeys.
Chief vet Prof Nigel Gibbens said the government was “closely monitoring the situation across Europe” and had scaled-up surveillance in response to the risk. He added: “As a precaution, and to allow time for poultry and captive bird keepers to put in place appropriate biosecurity measures, we have declared a 30-day prevention zone to reduce the risk of infection from wild birds.”
Threat
Members of the public are asked to report to Defra any dead swans, geese and ducks, or five or more dead birds of other species they see.
The threat to humans from the bird flu strain remains very low, Public Health England said. Environment secretary Andrea Leadsom said the prevention zone order was in response “to the risk to poultry and other captive birds”.
She added: “Defra has also enhanced its surveillance of wild birds, with particular emphasis on those species posing the greatest risk.”