KEY POINTS:
HALESWORTH - Square, steel gas chambers were delivered to a Suffolk farm yesterday.
All 159,000 turkeys at the hub of Bernard Matthews's business empire were to be placed into crates, forklifted into the chambers and gassed.
Workers carrying out the slaughter near Halesworth, Suffolk, were offered avian flu
drugs such as Tamiflu and wore protective clothing. Their grim task started after confirmation that the deaths of 2500 birds had been caused by the H5N1 strain of bird flu, which can be fatal to humans.
As a 3km protection zone and 10km surveillance zone were set up around Holton farm, the British Government attempted to calm fears over a threat to public health, saying there was no risk from eating poultry.
The first signs of the virus emerged last Wednesday, when 71 chicks died. The pace quickened and a further 186 died the following day, 860 on Friday and 1500 on Saturday. Yesterday hundreds of dead birds were dumped into an open-topped container by a tractor equipped with a giant blue shovel. The bodies were covered with a tarpaulin and taken away for incineration.
Police cordoned off roads around the farm and adjoining processing plant. All cars and lorries on the site were sprayed with disinfectant before being allowed to leave. Production is thought to have stopped on Saturday as fears grew about the sudden death of hundreds of birds in a single shed. The farm, on the site of a former World War II airfield, has 22 turkey sheds. Only one of the 22 sheds was affected, but all the birds will have to be killed.
Bernard Matthews informed the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) about the dead birds on Friday. Preliminary tests on Saturday confirmed bird flu, but it was only yesterday that further tests at laboratories in Weybridge, Surrey, revealed the H5N1 strain.
It is the first case on a UK commercial farm of H5N1, which has killed 164 people - most in South-East Asia - since 2003. The virus cannot pass from human to human at present.
There was criticism yesterday that Matthews had been too slow to act.
Lillian Foreman, 43, a local resident, said: "If turkeys started dying on the Wednesday, why wasn't Defra notified then?'
Matthews, 76, whose company has an annual turnover of £400 million ($1.15 million), was not available for comment. Giles Read, of the PR company Hill and Knowlton, released a statement on his behalf: "While Bernard Matthews can confirm that there has been a case of H5N1 avian influenza at its Holton site, it is important to stress that none of the affected birds has entered the food chain and there is no risk to consumers."
The site employs mostly migrant workers, many Portuguese. One worker, who asked not to be named, said: "We are all really worried about the consequences of this. Obviously we are concerned about our own health. Most of the people killed by bird flu in Asia died after coming into contact with infected birds.
"Anyone who catches a cold or gets a runny nose will be worried that they could be going down with it. I just can't work out how the infection got into one of the sheds. They are all enclosed and nothing should be able to get in.'
The Health Protection Agency stressed that the risk to humans was negligible and only an issue for those in direct contact with the birds.
Defra has a register of all farms where more than 50 birds are kept and contacted farmers in the Holton surveillance area to provide advice.
Dr Andrew Landeg, the Government's deputy chief veterinary officer, said: "We will be asking people to house birds where they can. Where it is not practical, they must provide food and water under covers."
The key issue, experts said, was to find out how the Holton turkeys became infected. Either the virus came from a nearby farm or it was brought to the shed by a wild bird.
However, as there have been no other reports of flu outbreaks from other farms, it is assumed the virus was picked up from a wild bird, a point stressed by Landeg. "All the signs are that this is a recent introduction of the disease," he said. "The birds originated in a hatchery and have never been off-site. The likelihood is that this is a wild bird introduction.'
It is a mystery how the virus reached the turkeys. The shed - like most buildings in which turkeys are raised - is sealed and allows no open access to the outside world.
If wild birds - in particular, wildfowl such as swans, geese or ducks - were responsible for the outbreak, it raises serious problems for British poultry farmers. Either the virus-carrying bird was one of small number of infected wildfowl now flying around Britain or it was one of a large number of birds that carry the disease.
- OBSERVER
ACTION STATIONS ON SUFFOLK FARM
Britain Outbreak: First case of H5N1 on a Suffolk farm. Some 2500 turkeys have died. More than 160,000 birds to be slaughtered. Poultry industry worth £3.4 billion ($9.95 billion), produces 800 million birds each year. In May, 50,000 chickens at three farms in Norfolk culled after H7N3 strain detected. Wild swan found dead in Scotland in March with H5N1. Thought to have caught the disease elsewhere, died at sea and been washed ashore in Scotland.
Measures: Dead birds being scooped into open tractor trailers before being incinerated. A 3km exclusion zone around farm. All poultry within that area kept indoors and tested for H5N1. A further 10km zone in which all movements of poultry are banned. Ban on bird shows, poultry markets and pigeon racing across the country.
Outlook: Avian flu experts said it was crucial that veterinary scientists discover if the farm was the first place this strain had emerged. The outbreak could be an "unhappy chance event" or could indicate significant level of the disease in domestic wild birds, which would make the virus harder to stamp out. Free-range farmers may face serious threats to their livelihood. If H5N1 now infects large numbers of wild fowl it will be almost impossible to prevent them passing on the disease to outdoors poultry.
Elsewhere Outbreaks: Japan and Nigeria have recently reported cases of H5N1. China, Egypt, Russia, South Korea and Vietnam have had outbreaks in birds and in humans in past two months. Indonesia last week began a mass bird cull in Jakarta. Thailand has had three outbreaks during the past month.
Spread: A total of 165 people are known to have been killed by the disease. More than 200 million birds have died from it, or been killed to prevent its spread. Five people in Indonesia have died from the virus since the start of the year. H5N1 is mutating as it spreads through birds and a variety of mammals including cats, tigers and pigs.
Reaction: The Netherlands, Europe's second-biggest poultry producer after France, reacted to the British outbreak by ordering farmers to keep poultry indoors. Norway, which has had no cases of H5N1, told farmers to keep poultry indoors south of Nordland county.
- OBSERVER, REUTERS