Authorities in eastern Poland say bird flu has been detected in turkeys and is responsible for the deaths of at least 25,000 of them in poultry farms near the country's borders with Ukraine and Belarus.
Polish veterinary authorities set plans to slaughter around 40,000 of birds in the Lubartow area, a major poultry farming region. Police were blocking access to the affected area to non-residents, according to media reports.
Associated Press quoted the chief veterinarian for Lublin province, Pawel Piotrowski, confirming that the deadly H5N8 virus was responsible for the turkey deaths in two farms in the village of Stary Uscimow, which lies 45 kilometers (28 miles) from the borders with Ukraine and Belarus.
On his part, Andrzej Danielak, president of Polish Association of Breeders and Poultry Producers, said that farms might be affected, with up to 350,000 birds at risk in a three kilometer radius.
It was not clear how the bird flu virus found its way to the farms.
According to Reuters, Poland, Europe’s largest poultry producer according to data from Eurostat, has not had an outbreak of bird flu since 2017.
Earlier last month, cases of bird flu have been confirmed at a chicken farm in Suffolk, UK, with authorities announced plans to cull 27,000 birds at the commercial farm and a 1km restriction zone has been implemented to limit the risk of the disease spreading..
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the strain has been identified as “low pathogenic avian flu”. Public Health England (PHE) has said the risk to public health is very low and the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has said food safety is not at risk.
The authorities were unable to figure out the most likely source of the outbreak, which was the first in the UK since January 2017, when thousands of birds in Lancashire and Lincolnshire were confirmed to have the H5N8 strain.
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