British bird flu outbreak now under control

Nov 19 2007

A cull to contain the latest bird flu outbreak in Britain has been successfully completed.

According to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) the cull was done to prevent the bird flu outbreak in eastern England from spreading further.

The cull involved four premises identified as having had dangerous contact with Redgrave Park Farm, near Diss, where the potentially lethal H5N1 strain of avian influenza was confirmed last week.

That outbreak resulted in a total of 28,600 birds being culled in Norfolk and Suffolk.

Official sources say laboratory tests on samples from birds from Bridge Farm in Pulham, near Diss, and Stone House Farm in West Harling, near Thetford, and those culled last week at Hill Meadow Farm, Knettishall, near Thetford, are continuing.

The poultry on the neighboring farms were culled because the small farms share many of the same workers and resources.

Some 5,500 free-range turkeys were slaughtered at Grove Farm in Botesdale in Suffolk after 50 birds were found dead but they later tested negative for the disease.

The outbreak is the latest blow to the British farming industry this year; Suffolk was hit by an outbreak of H5N1 at a turkey farm in February and the nation's first foot and mouth disease cases since 2001 were found in August; the country's first ever cases of bluetongue disease in cattle followed soon after.

DEFRA says there are no new outbreaks of the disease which is good news for the poultry industry.

Apparently had the virus spread, further evidence should have surfaced by now.

Volunteers have visited more than 3,000 homes within the bird flu surveillance zone in a bid to prevent the virus spreading and a poultry census is underway in the 10km surveillance area set up around Redgrave Park Farm.

Farmers have been praised for the way they have dealt with the current bird flu outbreak and and all of the workers tested earlier have been declared clear of the disease.

DEFRA has carried out comprehensive checks on all movement on and off Redgrave Park Farm, including checking feed lorries, waste trucks, straw trucks and rodent control workers.