Consumers 'sensible' about bird-flu risk

The British government moved to shore up consumer confidence today as the UK's poultry industry faced the prospect of multimillion-pound losses following an outbreak of the potentially deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

Minister for the environment Ben Bradshaw defended the way in which the emergence of the virus at the Bernard Matthews farm in Holton, Suffolk, was handled and insisted there was “absolutely” no risk from eating poultry products.