This article is from page 34 of the 2008-06-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 34 JPG
WITH all attention being diverted to WTO and Lisbon, a new outbreak of the highly pathogenic H7 version of bird flu in the UK went almost unno- ticed in farming circles this week.
Despite a number of near misses, the Republic remains a bird flu free zone and Minister for Agriculture, Brendan Smith, took a number of measures on Thursday to attempt to insure that this remains the case.
Smith confirmed all notifications from the Department of Environ- ment, Food and Rural Affairs (DE- FRA) that Oxfordshire outbreak does involve the deadly H7 strain of the virus.
As a consequence, the required EU movement restrictions on poultry and poultry products had been put in place by DEFRA and a ban had been imposed on bird gatherings and shows in the control zone around the outbreak premises.
The minister confirmed that, as a precautionary measure and along with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in Northern Ireland (DARD), his department was placing a ban on the participation of birds from the control zone in Ox- fordshire at bird shows and gather- ings in Ireland.
In addition, a ban was put in place on pigeon racing to Ireland from part of England or involving pigeons that
were in the control zone from last Wednesday.
“This is a further example of the application of an all-island approach to the threat of the introduction of avian ‘flu to the island of Ireland,” he said.
“The ornithological advice avail- able is that as we are currently at the high point of the breeding season, the risk of spread of avian flu by move- ment of migratory wild birds from Britain remains very low.
“My officials would continue to keep the situation and the existing contingency arrangements under on- going review.
“I would urge flock owners to con- tinue to take the measures that are
outlined in the biosecurity Informa- tion booklet that was recently circu- lated to them.”
The booklet, entitled Avian Influ- enza Control Measures, contained the clinical signs of the disease and any suspicions should be reported to the contact numbers listed.
In America, meanwhile, testing of more than 16,000 migratory birds between May 2006 and March 2007 showed no evidence of the H5N1 bird flu virus.
Information released last Thursday showed that the birds studied were infected with virtually every other known strain of influenza, other than the highly pathogenic and potentially deadly HSN] virus.