HOLTON, England (Reuters) — Russia and Japan banned British poultry imports as Britain pressed ahead with a cull of 160,000 turkeys after the nation’s first outbreak of a deadly strain of bird flu in farmed poultry.
Workers wearing white protective suits, black gloves and masks loaded the turkeys into crates to be gassed following the discovery of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of avian flu on a farm at Holton in eastern England run by Europe’s largest turkey producer, Bernard Matthews.
Farm workers were offered anti-viral drugs and restrictions were imposed on the way birds are housed or moved in a wide area surrounding the farm.
The outbreak had an immediate impact on Britain’s poultry industry, the second largest in the European Union after France.
Russians officials said Moscow would ban British poultry imports from Tuesday to prevent the spread of bird flu. Japan also banned British poultry imports while Ireland barred the import of poultry from Britain for “gatherings and shows”.
The European Union’s top health official said he was optimistic the bloc would be able to control bird flu this year despite outbreaks of the H5N1 strain in Britain and Hungary.
But EU Health and Food Safety Commissioner Markos Kyprianou added: “The virus is still around. We should never feel that we are safe.”
The H5N1 virus has spread into the Middle East, Africa and Europe since it reemerged in Asia in 2003 and outbreaks have now been detected in birds in around 50 countries.
It remains largely an animal disease, but can kill people who come into close contact with infected birds. It has killed 165 people over the past four years, a 22-year-old woman in Nigeria being the latest confirmed victim.
Sixty-three people have been killed in Indonesia, the country worst affected.
Scientists fear the virus could spark a pandemic in which millions die if it mutates into a form that passes easily from person to person.
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