February 3, 2007

scientists respond to discovery of bird flu in Suffolk

This follows the discovery that the poultry deaths at a Suffolk turkey farm were due to an avian flu virus of the H5 strain.

David Catlow, President of the British Veterinary Association (BVA), said:

“Any avian flu virus is contagious and this one is causing deaths in birds. If it is H5N1 there will be plans to cull it out completely before it has a chance to spread to other farms. The most appropriate response is to have immediate plans for facilities to slaughter the birds if it turns out to be H5N1.”

Dr Colin Butter, Avian flu expert, Institute of Animal Health, said:

“At the moment the critical thing is that we know what the virus is. The veterinary laboratory agency will be trying to work this out using traditional methods and molecular biology techniques such as RNA sequencing.

“The next thing we need to know is if this is a primary or secondary case. If this is a secondary case it is much more serious. If this is the first case, or ‘reference case’ and we can stamp it out, the outbreak will be controlled.

“This news is a bit surprising because it’s not the time of year when we have a lot of bird migration. We would not expect this to happen in the middle of winter. If it was going to happen we would expect it to happen in spring.”

Nick Blayney, president elect of the BVA, said:

“Whilst there is obviously media interest in the possible risk to humans, this is in any event a serious disease of poultry. Affected birds may well die and the sooner the spread can be halted the better.

“It will probably be necessary to humanely cull those birds that are affected and also to put in place controls on movement of birds in the area.

“We could also do with knowing how the disease arrived. The UK poultry industry is well organised and takes its disease control very seriously and the poultry vets will be working closely with DEFRA to deal with this problem.”