British Government caught on the back foot over bird flu outbreak

Feb 11 2007

Authorities in Britain have been caught on the back foot after it was revealed by the media that turkey meat from Hungary had been allowed into the country.

The meat, 20 tonnes of it, was imported into the country only three days after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus was confirmed at a farm in Suffolk, owned by Bernard Matthews.

It seems government inspectors did nothing even though they knew the meat was coming from a slaughterhouse 50 km from the site of a Hungarian bird flu outbreak in January.

The British government is defending the decision to allow the turkey meat into the country.

Bernard Matthews is one of Europe's largest turkey producers and has large farms in England and in Hungary.

Initially any suggestion of a link between the two enterprises and the outbreak of the deadly virus in the UK was hotly denied by both the British authorities and the company.

The Hungarian outbreak was at a goose farm in Szentes in Hungary 160 miles from the Bernard Matthews farm in Sarvar.

The Hungarian meat was processed at the Suffolk farm in sheds a few hundred yards from the where 160,000 turkeys were culled after the bird flu virus was found.

According to the Environment Secretary David Miliband, European Union (EU) rules restricts the movement of turkey within a 30 km radius of an avian flu outbreak, and Britain would have been inviting retaliation if it had imposed a ban on all poultry from Hungary.

Miliband insists the government behaved correctly in rigorously implementing the EU rules but this is the same government which initially suggested the British infection was most likely from wild birds.

The authorities have since admitted a link with Hungary was possible after tests showed the virus to be identical to the Hungarian one and now say it could have been spread by infected meat.

Bernard Matthews has now suspended the movement of poultry products between its British and Hungarian operations and says it had not imported any turkey meat from farms within the Hungarian restriction zone.

In Hungary officials are checking if there could be a link between the two outbreaks, but are skeptical that live birds could have been contaminated the virus in processed meat.

British officials speculate that the virus could also have reached British shores on vehicles from Hungary.

Critics have labelled the authorities behaviour as "completely ridiculous" in allowing the Hungarian shipment into the country last week in view of the potential massive public health risk.

Miliband says government agencies are working with Hungarian authorities and Bernard Matthews to track down a lapse in bio-security that led to the Suffolk outbreak.

Experts however say as it remains unclear where the outbreak in Hungary came from as there could be a third source of infection which was most likely spread by human contact.

Apparently an abattoir in Hungary handled both the geese that were infected with H5N1 and the turkeys destined for Suffolk and although the equipment would have been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected the virus could easily have been passed on to the turkeys.

While most parts of infected birds carry the virus there are 10 million viruses in just one gramme of droppings.

Nevertheless at present the H5N1 virus remains a disease of birds and it is quite difficult for people to contract it.

Virtually all human infections to date have been the result of close contact with infected birds.

However should the virus mutate and acquire the ability to pass from human to human that will be a completely different situation and could pose an enormous threat to human health across the world.

Since it re-emerged in Asia in 2003 the H5N1 virus has spread into the Middle East, Africa and Europe and according to the World Health Organisation it has to date been responsible for the death of 166 human beings and, either directly or in directly, for the death of millions of birds.