HAMBURG (Reuters) – About 37,000 chickens will be slaughtered in Germany after bird flu was found on a farm in the east of the country, authorities said on Wednesday.
Type H5N8 bird flu was confirmed on a farm in Kobrow in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the state’s agriculture ministry said.
A series of bird flu outbreaks have been reported on farms in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in recent weeks, with wild birds suspected to be spreading the disease.
France is to extend mass culling of hundreds of thousands of poultry livestock to contain a bird flu virus sweeping through a duck-breeding area in the southwest of the country.
Risk to humans from the disease is considered low, but past outbreaks among farm birds have required extensive slaughtering programmes as a containment measure.
(Reporting by Michael Hogan; Editing by David Goodman)
