Bird Flu Could Hit Britain, But Might Not Hurt
Date: 21-Mar-06
Country: UK
Author: Elizabeth Piper
David King said Britain was on "high alert" after France was struck by the deadly H5N1 flu strain, but offered soothing words to farmers who have struggled with a series of animal health scares, including mad cow and foot-and-mouth disease.
"If you look at migratory patterns, unless the weather gets even colder than it is now we would say it is very unlikely that there is going to be wild bird migration from Europe over to Britain in this winter period," he told Reuters.
"So following wild bird behaviour, what we would anticipate is that it's unlikely to come to the United Kingdom before the next return migratory pattern which would be in the summer, in August or September ... this isn't to say I believe that it will be here ... but that is the next higher probability period."
"To date we are pretty confident it is not in the wild bird population."
Britain has so far been spared avian influenza, which has spread from Asia to the Middle East, Africa and Europe. It has killed more than 90 people and millions of birds worldwide and was diagnosed at a turkey farm in the east of France last month.
Scientists fear that if it mutates into a form that is passed easily between humans, it could kill millions.
But King said even if it arrived, Britain's poultry farmers and human population could be spared.
"If it comes in the wild bird population what is the likelihood it happening in the poultry holdings? Quite possibly zero, it's going to be a small, a very small number of farm holdings that would go down," he said.
Ruling out the kind of destruction caused by foot-and-mouth disease, which in 2001 led to the mass killing of sheep and cattle, King said the way poultry was farmed in Britain meant the spread would be limited.
And there was more chance of winning the lottery than a human catching the virus.
"If it became endemic in not only wild birds but poultry, which I think is extremely unlikely, but if it did ... the chance of a human being getting the disease is less than one in 100 million," he said.