Christmas is coming and so is bird flu!

Nov 15 2007

It is feared that tens of thousands of turkeys will be slaughtered across Britain in efforts to contain the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu.

The latest outbreak of the lethal virus on a farm near Diss in Norfolk, has caused over 6,000 birds - turkeys, ducks and geese - to be culled and it is now thought another 22,000 birds on four more farms will be killed as a precautionary measure.

Government vets suspect poultry workers inadvertently spread the virus from the centre of the outbreak at Redgrave Park Farm to the four new sites on their clothes and vehicles; they say the culled birds will all be tested for bird flu.

Redgrave Park Farm is an organic facility supplying the organic and free-range industry, where the birds roam outside and are particularly vulnerable to infections from wild birds.

Should the British authorities find any evidence that the virus is spreading, all organic and free range birds will be confined to quarters indoors and mass vaccination of farm birds may be needed.

Scientists suspect the virus, which is identical to the strain seen in Germany and the Czech Republic during the summer, was spread by migrating wildfowl.

But there is also a suspicion that imported day-old ducklings from the Netherlands are the culprits; ducks can apparently act as carriers without showing symptoms of the disease.

Gressingham Foods who regularly import the ducklings, is only a stone's throw away from Redgrave Park Farm and all five farms supply birds to the company.

Gressingham Foods is one of Britain's largest duck, geese and turkey producers and the company also imports specialty poultry meats such as guinea fowl, poussin, barbary duck breasts and legs and smoked duck breasts, which are part of the official inquiry.

There have also been suggestions that biosecurity at the Redgrave farm could have been better and facilities there are reported to be basic.

Concerns have also been voiced about the rearing of organic birds adjacent to an ornamental lake which attracts wild birds.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) says bird flu has only been found at the Redgrave farm and the other birds are being culled as a precautionary measure in order to prevent any potential spread of the disease.

The farms are all in a ten mile radius of each other and there is a direct link between Redgrave Park Farm and the small farms which share the same farming staff.

Some experts say bird flu is not a particular risk for organic farmers and point out that the bird flu outbreak in February at a Bernard Matthews plant in Suffolk involved an intensive unit, where birds are kept inside all day.

In that incident the disease was thought to have been brought in by imported poultry products, rather than wild birds.

Turkey farming in East Anglia is a major industry where 25 million turkeys are farmed for export and the domestic Christmas market; many of the turkeys are breeding birds.

The virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu has to date killed around 300 people worldwide; it remains at present a disease of birds which is spread via faeces or saliva and almost all humans who have contracted the disease were in close physical contact with infected birds.

In faeces the virus is able to survive for several weeks, depending on conditions such as temperature and humidity.

The British government’s own scientific advisory panel has recommended that the country's emergency stockpile of flu drugs must be doubled or even tripled to give the country the best chance of containing a pandemic.