Bird flu strain discovered in the Netherlands

//25 Mar 2011

A H7 strain of bird flu has been discovered on a poultry farm in the Netherlands, the Dutch government has confirmed.

The bird flu strain was detected at a poultry farm in the municipality of Kapelle, located in the province of Zeeland, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation acknowledged in a statement.

The Ministry stated that the outbreak involved the H7 variant but that the exact subtype of the bird flu virus was not yet known, noting that the low pathogenic variant is able to mutate into a highly pathogenic variant.

In compliance with European rules, all 127,500 chickens at the poultry farm will be culled immediately and a movement ban applying to poultry, eggs, poultry manure, poultry litter and poultry food for a radius of 1 kilometer has been announced.

Wild birds are the likely source of infection according to the Ministry. In 2003, the Netherlands was hit by an epidemic of the H7N7 bird flu strain, resulting in the cull of more than 25 million birds.