Reuters
Fri Oct 21, 2005 1:48 PM BST
By David Brough
LONDON (Reuters) - The government plans to launch a national register of poultry businesses, and a farmers' spokesman said on Friday it would enable authorities to tackle any future outbreak of bird flu swiftly.
From next month, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will start inviting new registrations from businesses raising chickens, ducks and other fowl.
A spokesman for the National Farmers' Union (NFU) said that if an outbreak occurred, the new register would enable authorities to quickly identify other poultry populations in the area, and take rapid action to contain the disease.
"A national register allows you to pinpoint where an outbreak happens and identify zones that might possibly be affected," Dale Atkinson told Reuters.
He said the national register would bring in smaller commercial poultry keepers, but it was not immediately clear if it would also encompass households that own fowl.
Currently, Defra, the NFU and individual poultry organisations, hold information separately, but no central register exists.
"Commercial poultry keepers will be asked to register their flocks as part of an initiative, backed by the industry, to step up surveillance of the avian influenza virus," a Defra statement said on Thursday.
Bird flu, which experts fear could mutate into a form that jumps easily from person to person and unleash a global pandemic, has killed more than 60 people in four Asian countries during this period.
All human deaths from avian flu have so far been in Asia but the H5N1 strain was detected this month in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania. Further tests are being carried out in Europe on a bird from Greece.
The government, although there have been no recorded local cases of bird flu, has a detailed contingency plan in the event of an outbreak of bird flu. The new national register of poultry businesses will further reinforce protection.
"Combining all the information on one database containing the location and size of enterprises would be a major advantage to aid effective communication between keepers and help manage any outbreak," Defra said.
Defra has announced plans to publish this week a simple one-page guide on avian flu and how poultry keepers can reduce the risk of disease.
Margaret Beckett, Minister for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said Defra had worked closely with the poultry industry to prepare its contingency plans, which were tested in July.
"We believe we are prepared to deal with an outbreak," she said.
"The European directive on avian influenza will require us to introduce a poultry register by 2007, but we must move much faster than that," she added.
She said the new register could limit the spread of the disease in any future outbreak.
"It would allow us to know where poultry farms are and target effort and resources effectively," she said.
"Farmers hold the key to tackling any notifiable disease, and we will continue to work together with them to ensure any avian influenza outbreak is quickly contained and eradicated."
The national poultry industry has an annual turnover of 1,674 million pounds and is the second biggest poultry industry in Europe after France, producing almost 14 percent of Europe's poultry meat.
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