Farmers have issued a warning that a traditional turkey Christmas dinner could be off the cards this year if the current bird flu outbreak in the UK continues to spread. The ongoing bird flu epidemic is the worst case to date in UK history and over three million turkeys have been slaughtered in an attempt to tackle further spread of the disease which is likely to result in a shortage of turkeys for the festive period.
Special protection zones have been established in Suffolk, Norfolk, parts of Essex and the whole of the South West of England specifically to preserve healthy livestock. The government has stated that the risk from bird flu at this stage is medium, the Mirror reports.
A statement published on gov.uk reads: “The risk of incursion of highly pathogenic (HPAI) avian influenza H5 in wild birds in Great Britain remains at medium (that is, event occurs regularly). The risk to poultry with stringent biosecurity is maintained at low (with low uncertainty).
“However, the risk to poultry exposure to HPAI H5 in Great Britain with suboptimal biosecurity has been increased to medium (with medium uncertainty), in light of the increased number of infected premises observed during September and the distance of some of these, as well as some wild bird cases, from the coast. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has said that avian influenza is primarily a disease of birds and the risk to the general public’s health is very low.”
The Daily Mail reports James Mottershead, chairman of the National Farmers' Union poultry board, as saying that the disease could cause “carnage” over the festive period. “If bird flu gets into turkeys that could cause holy carnage; that could cause real supply chain issues in the run-up to Christmas,” he said.
“I know of some instances where seasonal turkey producers have been affected.” He added that farms which have an outbreak and are classed as infected could have to stop raising birds for up to a year.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said officials were working to “eradicate the disease as quickly as possible”. Around one billion birds are farmed in the UK each year and other species, such as ducks, are also at risk.
James Coleman, who has had to cull 20,000 ducks at his Devon farm, told Sky News: “At the moment everybody in the industry is just on tenterhooks constantly.” He said that Defra needs to conduct a “massive review” of its handling of the outbreak and offer financial aid to farms forced to shut down.
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