Essential measures to contain the highly contagious H5N8 strain of bird flu are set to be adopted by the European Commission. The virus has been detected on a Dutch poultry farm and a British duck breeding facility, reports GHN based on DW.
The European Commission is expected to meet on Monday in Brussels to discuss immediate measures to contain the highly contagious H5N8 strain of bird flu. The virus was confirmed on a poultry farm south of Amsterdam in the Netherlands on Sunday.
"The Commission is expected to adopt ... a decision with urgent interim protective measures in relation to this outbreak," said Commission spokesman, Ricardo Cardoso.
The decision will describe the zones established by the Dutch authorities around the infected poultry farm where it will be forbidden to sell live poultry, eggs, poultry meat and other poultry products to other European Union member states and third countries.
The Dutch government has already implemented their own stringent measures by imposing a 72-hour ban on the transport of all poultry products across the whole country and a 10-kilometer (six mile) transport ban on the affected farm, which will last 30 days. All 150,000 chickens on the farm in the village of Hekendorp will also be slaughtered by agriculture inspectors.
Despite the particular strain of the virus being highly pathogenic for birds, a spokesman for the Netherlands' Ministry for Economic Affairs, Jan van Diepen, has played down the risks to human health. "For people it's not that dangerous: you'd only get it if you were in very close contact with the birds," he said.