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Bird flu scare prompts pre-Xmas turkey cull

AFP
AFP - [email protected]
Bird flu scare prompts pre-Xmas turkey cull
Photo: DPA

Health officials have ordered a mass cull of thousands of poultry after a bird flu outbreak was confirmed as the highly pathogenic H5N8 strain.

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The precautionary move came after the discovery at a poultry farm in Lower Saxony.

State agriculture minister Christian Meyer said that 19,000 animals at the site and another 12,000 turkeys at a neighbouring farm would be destroyed.

He said the strain detected in the Cloppenburg district was the same as that found at another farm in November in Schleswig-Holstein state.

Meyer expressed concern that the virus could spread quickly. "Cloppenburg is a traditional heartland of the poultry industry," he said.
 
The district had already imposed a three-day ban on all poultry transports to thwart the potential spread of H5N8.
 
Some strains of avian influenza are fatal for birds, and pose a health threat to humans, who can fall sick after handling infected poultry.

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