AP Features, February 3rd, 2007
Tests by an EU laboratory have confirmed an outbreak of bird flu which killed about 2,500 turkeys on a British poultry farm is the lethal H5N1 strain of the virus, the European Commission said Saturday.
It is the first time that the H5N1 strain has been detected on a poultry farm in Britain. Last March, a wild swan in Scotland was found to have H5N1.
The outbreak occurred on a farm of 159,000 turkeys in Lowestoft, Suffolk, about 130 miles (210 kilometers) northeast of London, it said.
It added 2,500 birds died and that tests by an EU laboratory in Weybridge "swiftly confirmed the disease to be the H5N1 strain of avian influenza."
The Commission said a panel of EU food and animal health experts will discuss the outbreak Tuesday and review British measures to isolate the farm to prevent a spread of the disease.
The measures include marking a "high risk" zone with a radius of three kilometers (two miles) around the infected farm and a "low risk" surveillance zone of 10 kilometers (6.5 miles), it said.
The illness among the turkeys was first reported on Thursday evening.
Bird flu has killed or prompted the culling of millions of birds worldwide since late 2003 when it first began ravaging Asian poultry stocks. It has killed at least 164 people worldwide, but remains difficult for humans to catch. Experts fear it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a global pandemic. So far, most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds.
British experts said eating well-cooked poultry and eggs poses no health risk, but that close contact with sick birds _ like slaughtering and plucking _ can transmit the disease in rare instances.
Last winter, the H5N1 virus swept across countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and into Europe. The World Health Organization has warned that a repeat is possible this year, encouraging countries to remain on high alert.
The virus' spread has been blamed on migratory birds and the vast movement of poultry, including the smuggling of domestic birds and their parts across borders.
