Poultry farmers on virus alert

POULTRY farmers this week continued their stringent bio-security controls, which have so far kept Ireland safe from the dangerous H5N1 strain of bird flu.

As the third case of the disease since 2005 was found in Britain, the IFA’s national poultry committee chairman, Ned Morrissey, re-assured consumers that there is no risk when buying fully traceable and quality assured Irish poultry. The discovery of the virus on a Suffolk farm follows Britain’s 2007 foot-and-mouth and bluetongue outbreaks, and couldn’t have come at a worse time than before Christmas, usually a lucrative period for poultry farmers. While the H5N1 strain is deadly for birds, scientists say the risk to the public is minuscule.