More than 36,000 animals have been slaughtered after an outbreak of highly contagious bird flu was detected at a Dutch poultry farm, the agriculture ministry said today. "An outbreak of a variant of H5 bird flu has been detected in a poultry farm in Oldekerk, Groningen province," the ministry said in a statement, adding that it is "likely a highly pathogenic variant". To prevent the virus spreading, the ministry ordered an immediate ban on the transportation of poultry, eggs, meat and manure within a ten-kilometre zone around the farm in the north of the country. The government has ordered poultry farmers to keep their livestock indoors since December, when a bird flu outbreak at another farm led to the slaughter of 16,000 birds. Dutch poultry farmers, already reeling from a contaminated egg scandal, were also hit by another outbreak in December which saw thousands of hens destroyed.
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