EU adopts measures to combat bird flu

The European Commission has adopted protective measures after cases of bird flu were reported from the UK and Netherlands.

As precaution, animals in infected areas will be killed and there will a ban on the sale of poultry products from those areas.

The EU said in a statement: "The measures aim at quickly bringing the disease under control and at preventing the spread of the highly pathogenic avian influenza within the affected member states, to other member states and to third countries."

Dutch authorities have stopped the transportation of eggs and poultry across the country after a strain of the flu was detected at a farm in Hekendorp, south of Amsterdam. The strain was reportedly lethal for poultry and was potentially transmissible to humans.

The strain has been identified as H5N8, which has never been detected in humans, according to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm.

The Dutch Government said: "This highly pathogenic variant of avian influenza is very dangerous for bird life. The disease can be transmitted from animals to humans."

The UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that a case of the virus had been detected in ducks in the Driffield area of East Yorkshire in the north of England. However, the department stated that the risk to public health was low.

Officials from EU have said that there is a remote chance of the outbreak being linked to the recent outbreak of bird flu in Germany. The officials are speculating that migratory wild birds heading south for winter could have spread the virus.

BBC quoted Britain’s chief veterinary officer, Nigel Gibbens as saying: "We’ll be looking for other possible sources of the disease, including any links to the disease that we’re seeing in the Netherlands and Germany, and that will include looking at the risk from wild birds spread to our national flock."

---

Image: The European Union has released new measures to prevent incidences of bird flu. Photo: courtesy of Simon Howden / freedigitalphotos.net.