12/02/2007

Bird flu farm exclusion zone 'may have been broken'

The exclusion zone set up around a Bernard Matthews turkey farm may have been broken, according to reports.

It has been claimed that cooked poultry products were sent from the farm in Upper Holton in Suffolk to Hungary after the deadly H5N1 virus was discovered there.

The government said that the European Union allowed cooked poultry products to be exported from an exclusion zone.

Defra said that the virus is quickly destroyed by heat and that cooked meat would therefore by safe.

The Holton farm was shut down as soon as the H5N1 virus was discovered and nearly 160,000 birds were culled. However, it has been reported that business continued at a processing plant at the site.

At the end of last week, Bernard Matthews announced that they had now suspended further trade between Hungary and the UK as a precaution.

Last week, it was announced that the virus affecting the Suffolk farm may have originated in Hungary.

The H5N1 virus was discovered on a goose farm near Szentes in southern Hungary last month. However, Bernard Matthews said that its record 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.

Commenting on the reports, Liberal Democrat rural affairs spokesperson Chris Huhne said: "If true, the revelation that Defra allowed continued imports of poultry meat from Hungary after the notification of bird flu at the Bernard Matthews plant in Suffolk is extraordinary and suggestive that one part of the department does not know what other parts are doing.

"David Miliband urgently must come to the House of Commons to explain his department's efforts in stopping the spread of bird flu and protecting human health from what would be a devastating mutation into a virus contagious between humans."

(KMcA)


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