Health authorities in the Netherlands confirm they have found the same highly contagious strain of bird flu as the one discovered in Germany less than a fortnight ago.
Agricultural inspectors have destroyed 150,000 chickens at the egg farm in the central Netherlands village of Hekendorp, and banned the transport of poultry products across the country for 72 hours.
The strain, H5N8, has never been detected in humans, but an outbreak in South Korea meant millions of farm birds had to be slaughtered to contain the outbreak.
Cases have also been reported in China and Japan, although the strain was first reported in Europe, on a German farm, in early November.
The Dutch government has said the strain was capable of jumping the species barrier to people, but only if they were in very close contact with the birds.
The Netherlands’ poultry transport ban includes birds, eggs, dung and used straw to and from poultry farms across the country, the world’s leading egg exporter.
Between them, Dutch poultry farms sell more than 6 billion eggs abroad every year, though it is not known how many of the 697 farms are exporters.
Germany is the largest destination, at 75 per cent of all exports, figures published by Rabobank showed. The Netherlands is also a leading poultry exporter.
Agricultural inspectors have started destroying the 150,000 chickens at the farm in the village, and banned poultry transport across the whole of the Netherlands.
The H5N8 strain of bird flu was reported in Germany on November 4 on a farm in the north-eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern after it caused widespread destruction in Asia.
“It’s a highly pathogenic strain for birds,” said Dutch economics ministry spokesman Jan van Diepen.
“For people it’s not that dangerous; you’d only get it if you were in very close contact with the birds.”
The farm at Hekendorp sold eggs rather than poultry, another spokesman said.
Produce from the farm was sold primarily in the Netherlands, the farm’s owner Piet Wiltenburg said, with some also exported to Germany.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with that produce,” Mr Wiltenburg said.
Some 10,000 chickens were destroyed in March after bird flu was found at a farm in the eastern Dutch province of Gelderland, but the country had not had cases of any of the highly contagious H5 or H7 strains of bird flu in the past 10 years, according to data from the World Organisation for Animal Health.
Earlier outbreaks in Europe and Asia have infected humans, prompting fears of a bird flu epidemic.
The transportation ban would remain in force for 30 days for the 16 poultry farms within a 10 kilometre radius of the site of the outbreak, and all of them would be subject to enhanced security measures for visitors and regularly checked for signs of bird flu.
In September, Russia reported the first cases of H5N1, another dangerous strain, in nearly two years.
ABC/Reuters