Bird flu scare prompts pre-Xmas turkey cull
Health officials have ordered a mass cull of thousands of poultry after a bird flu outbreak was confirmed as the highly pathogenic H5N8 strain.
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.
Comments
See Also
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.
Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please keep comments civil, constructive and on topic – and make sure to read our terms of use before getting involved.
Please log in here to leave a comment.