EU advised to confine poultry in bird flu-risk areas
Source: Reuters
(adds details, quotes, recasts) BRUSSELS, Feb 6 (Reuters) - European Union veterinary experts advised national authorities on Tuesday to keep poultry indoors in recognised high-risk bird flu areas but decided against widespread vaccination of flocks for now. Governments also were asked to review plans to fight the disease, which re-emerged last weekend on a turkey farm in Britain, the EU's executive Commission said in a statement. "Member states were asked to review the measures that they currently have in place and advised to keep poultry indoors in identified high risk areas," it said, adding that countries must also "maintain heightened surveillance and biosecurity". The experts, representing the EU's 27 member governments, discussed whether there should be widespread vaccination of poultry flocks against the disease -- but decided against it. "While this is considered as a possibility in certain circumstances, such as the Dutch and French programmes agreed last year ... it is not considered feasible to carry out widespread vaccination of all poultry flocks at this time." During the experts' meeting, British officials said it was unlikely the outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu strain detected last weekend had come from Hungary where there was a similar outbreak reported in late January. Britain had no plans for a widespread vaccination campaign, they said. All 159,000 birds on the UK holding have been culled.
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