09/02/2007

Possible Hungarian source for Suffolk avian flu

There have been claims that the bird flu, which affected a turkey farm in Suffolk, may have come from Hungary.

According to reports, government vets now believe that the deadly H5N1 virus was spread from other poultry and not from wild birds.

Bernard Matthews, which owned the Suffolk farm where the virus was found, owns a plant in Hungary from where meat products were transferred.

The H5N1 virus was discovered on a goose farm near Szentes in southern Hungary last month. However, Bernard Matthews said that its records showed that the imported meat products were not from the infected zone. The plant is in Sarvar, which is about 160 miles from the infected area.

The company has now suspended further trade between Hungary and the UK as a precaution.

The claims follow statements from both Bernard Matthews and Environment Secretary David Miliband saying that there was no link with an outbreak in an Eastern European country.

The government's chief scientist Sir David King told BBC Breakfast that the H5N1 virus arriving in the UK via dead poultry from Hungary was the "most likely scenario", while Defra's Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer Fred Landeg said that it now appeared that the virus may be identical to the one discovered in Hungary.

However, Hungarian officials have said that it was unlikely that the virus could have been transferred via processed or frozen meat.

The Food Standards Agency has announced that its is investigating whether meat infected with H5N1 could have entered the food chain. However, they stressed that infeccted meat posed no threat to humans if it was cooked properly.

Nearly 160,000 birds at the farm have been culled following the discovery of the deadly H5N1 virus. A three-kilometre protection zone is in place around the farm, as is a ten-kilometre surveillance zone.

(KMcA)

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