The Danish veterinary authority announced Monday, November 16 the discovery of a first outbreak of avian influenza in the west of the country and decreed the slaughter of 25,000 poultry as well as a pause in exports of eggs and chickens outside the EU.
Read also: Coronavirus: Denmark begins slaughtering hundreds of thousands of mink
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A flock of chickens with 25,000 animals in Randers will be slaughtered because it is affected by the severe avian influenza H5N8,
" Foedevarestyrelse said in a statement.
After the outbreak of outbreaks in Russia and Kazakhstan this summer, the epidemic, which is not dangerous for humans, has recently spread to Western Europe.
In France, poultry are preventively confined in 46 departments while outbreaks have been detected in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
The Danish agency has established a 3 km zone around the infected farm, where all poultry will be subject to special restrictions, as well as a 10 km zone with intensive monitoring of wild birds and poultry flocks.
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It is important that they (farmers) protect their poultry from wild birds with a shelter and a roof,
” John Larsen, chief veterinarian, said in the statement.
The outbreak means the halt of poultry and egg exports to countries outside the EU for at least three months.
This is the second animal epidemic that Denmark has faced in recent months.
In early November, he announced the slaughter of some 17 million mink in the country - a population three times the number of inhabitants - after the discovery of a mutation of the new coronavirus in these mammals that could possibly compromise the effectiveness of a next vaccine for humans.