You are in > manchester.com  > News > Fifth farm in bird flu cull

Business

Fifth farm in bird flu cull

21/11/2007

The government has ordered all poultry on a fifth farm in East Anglia to be culled against bird flu risk.

The premises on the Norfolk-Suffolk border lies within the 10km surveillance zone set up around the two cases of avian flu identified so far this month.

Although only a precautionary measure, acting chief veterinary officer Fred Landeg said he believed it was the right decision to make because poultry on the premise could have been exposed to infection.

"I cannot emphasise enough that it is essential all poultry keepers practice the highest levels of biosecurity and report any suspicions of disease to their local Animal Health office," he added.

The new cull, authorised by officials from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), came after the farm was declared a "dangerous contact". Three of the four earlier premises where slaughter took place were given the same classification of risk.

The H5N1 virus, which can be fatal to humans, was confirmed at one of these four farms on Monday, three days after culling was completed, in the second confirmed case in the latest outbreak.

In total the four premises culled last week resulted in the deaths of 28,000 birds, significantly less than the 160,000 slaughtered at a Suffolk Bernard Matthews farm in February.

News of the latest precautionary cull continues a difficult year for UK farmers, who have been forced to struggle through foot-and-mouth and bluetongue disease outbreaks in addition to the latest bird flu threat.