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2007-9-3 13:41:49 |
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The avian flu outbreak that occurred last week on a poultry farm near Lowestoft in Suffolk, Britain has resulted in loss of the country's official ˇ°country freedomˇ± status for this disease, prompting some countries to ban imports of live poultry and hatching eggs, captive birds, poultry meat and poultry meat products from Great Britain. Some countries and regions including Japan, Ireland, Russia, Hong Kong, Jersey, South Africa, and South Korea have already decided to temporarily halt imports of poultry products from Great Britain. The Britain may see a loss of nearly 700 million US dollars in the international trading of poultry products. Bans on imports of British poultry products following the Suffolk bird flu outbreak are "totally disproportionate", the European Commission was cited by Guardian.co.uk as saying today. A commission spokesman today urged that those countries restore the normal trading business as quickly as possible. However, intra-community trade from the UK to other European states was not affected by the outbreak as long as the poultry or eggs do not come from farms under restriction or farms within the restricted area, according to Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). The government advised that exporters wising to export from the restricted areas should contact their local SVS Animal Health Divisions Office. The avian flu outbreak was reported to the State Veterinary Services (SVS) by a vet who suspected an avian notifiable disease at the affected turkey farm in Suffolk. The vet suspected because many of turkey among 7000 birds in one shed died, which did not seem due to some common disease. The finding prompted Defra to enforce restrictions on the farm so that no birds, people or equipment may move off those affected sites. Preliminary test results coming back from the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, Surrey late Friday evening indicated the birds were infected by avian flu H5 strain while the pathogenicity of the virus remained unknown at that time. Next day morning, Fred Landeg the Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer confirmed the presence of H5N1 avian flu in the infected turkeys farm, the same strain found in Asia, which has spread across the globe resulting in deaths of 200 million birds and more than 164 people in ten countries since 2003. After confirmation of the presence of the highly virulent H5N1 virus, all of about 160,000 birds in 22 sheds on the affected farm have been humanly killed and buried and Defra is till investigating to find out how the H5N1 virus found its way into the affected turkey farm. A detailed epidemiological report will be released as soon as possible. No human case of H5N1 has been reported so far in connection of the avian flu outbreak in turkeys. However, a vet who attended the avian flu outbreak in Suffolk has been admitted to hospital after suffering from a mild respiratory illness, the Health Protection Agency was cited today by BBC as saying. The incident prompted health officials to wonder if the vet has been infected with the avian flu virus. The diagnostic results are expected Wednesday. For official information on the avian flu outbreak, visit Defra. ## |
