Chickens at a Norfolk farm to be culled after testing positive for bird flu

April 27, 2006

35,000 chickens at Witford Lodge Farm at Norfolk, England are to be culled after some chickens found dead tested positive for bird flu. Further tests are being carried out to establish which strain of the virus it was, but preliminary results suggest it is not the H5N1 strain, but is instead the H7N7 strain. The birds are being culled as a precautionary measure.

The H7N7 strain can be transmitted to humans, but not as easily or as lethally as the H5N1 strain. Previous outbreaks of the H7N7 strain include one from 2003 in the Netherlands, which infected more than 80 people and led to the death of one vet.

So far the only positive test for H5N1 in the UK has been a dead swan found in Fife.