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http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050822/hl_afp/healthnetherlandsflu_050822104831
Dutch poultry to be kept indoors because of bird flu
Mon Aug 22, 6:48 AM ET
THE HAGUE (AFP) - Dutch farmers are obliged to keep all poultry indoors amid fears of a fresh eruption of bird flu, which already wiped out much of the Netherlands' poultry stock two years ago.
Some five million free-range chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and other birds will have to be kept indoors, along with 80 million battery birds that are already kept under a roof.
The measure is designed to minimize contact between the commercially farmed poultry and wild birds migrating here from parts of Russia or Asia where bird flu has broken out, which could potentially carry the virus.
"The ministry is expecting the measure to be in place until early 2006. The bird migration period usually lasts until December but in cold weather the bird flu virus could survive a little longer," agriculture ministry spokeswoman Nienke van der Zee said Monday.
The disease can also spread to humans. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed more than 60 people in Asia, the majority in Vietnam, since 2003.
In 2003 some 25 million birds, a quarter of the Dutch poultry stock at the time, was felled by the flu or killed in an attempt to stem the outbreak. Poultry exports were forbidden for several months.
Dutch poultry to be kept indoors because of bird flu
Mon Aug 22, 6:48 AM ET
THE HAGUE (AFP) - Dutch farmers are obliged to keep all poultry indoors amid fears of a fresh eruption of bird flu, which already wiped out much of the Netherlands' poultry stock two years ago.
Some five million free-range chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and other birds will have to be kept indoors, along with 80 million battery birds that are already kept under a roof.
The measure is designed to minimize contact between the commercially farmed poultry and wild birds migrating here from parts of Russia or Asia where bird flu has broken out, which could potentially carry the virus.
"The ministry is expecting the measure to be in place until early 2006. The bird migration period usually lasts until December but in cold weather the bird flu virus could survive a little longer," agriculture ministry spokeswoman Nienke van der Zee said Monday.
The disease can also spread to humans. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed more than 60 people in Asia, the majority in Vietnam, since 2003.
In 2003 some 25 million birds, a quarter of the Dutch poultry stock at the time, was felled by the flu or killed in an attempt to stem the outbreak. Poultry exports were forbidden for several months.