London / Paris: Britain announced the discovery of a highly contagious strain of bird flu at a turkey farm, and sought to allay fears the outbreak could affect traditional Christmas meal.
The H5N8 strain of avian flu was detected at a farm near Louth, a town in northeast England, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said. All of the more than 5,000 birds at the farm that have not died from disease will be culled, Defra said.
The government also announced it was restricting the movement of animals and animal products around the affected site.
Nigel Gibbens, the UK’s chief veterinary officer, said any risk to public health was “very low” and “does not pose a food safety risk for UK consumers”, chiefly among Britons preparing for Christmas festivities which often include the traditional meal of roast turkey.
“There is not anticipated to be any impact on the supplies of turkeys or other birds over Christmas,” Defra said.
In a related incident, France detected H5N9 avian influenza among poultry in southwest of the country, an official report said, the third strain of bird flu to be confirmed this month in the region known for its foie gras production. Two outbreaks of low pathogenic H5N9 bird flu were confirmed among poultry in Gers administrative department, France’s agriculture ministry said in a report posted online by World Organisation for Animal Health.
This led to slaughtering of 970 birds out of 1,870 at risk in the outbreaks, the report showed.
The Gers this month also saw the first case of H5N1 in France in the current wave of bird flu.
It is also one of several areas of southwestern France to be affected by the highly contagious H5N8 strain.
Twenty seven outbreaks of H5N8 bird flu have been confirmed on farms in the southwest, the agriculture ministry said in an update on its website on Friday.
The spread of the disease is a setback for French poultry producers recovering from an epidemic a year ago.
