Bird flu cull leads to 'festive crisis' fears

It is the last thing the British food industry needed. Just weeks before Christmas, white-suited vets are being despatched to the countryside to begin the cull of thousands of turkeys infected with a highly lethal strain of bird flu.

Industry commentators warn of an impending festive crisis, with claims that the cost of a Yuletide turkey could hit more than £100.

But yesterday, despite news that a further 24,000 birds were being slaughtered in East Anglia because of fears they may have come into "dangerous contact" with poultry already confirmed with the H5N1 virus, farmers, retailers and scientists insisted the latest outbreak of the disease was under control and unlikely to have an impact on consumers.

As experts sought to confirm the origin of the virus, the acting chief veterinary officer Fred Landeg said the culling of poultry on four premises in Norfolk and Suffolk was merely a "precautionary measure" and there was no evidence that the virus, potentially fatal to humans, was spreading. All four farms are operated by Gressingham Foods, whose subsidiary Redgrave Poultry runs the free-range Redgrave Park site where the outbreak was first identified.

One of the new sites is inside the 3km protection zone, while the other three are outside the 10km surveillance area but within the larger restricted zone which covers Suffolk and most of Norfolk. It is believed the disease may have been carried by staff working across the sites.

Mr Landeg urged all poultry keepers to remain extra vigilant. "At this stage we have not confirmed disease on any of these four premises. This is a precautionary measure taken to prevent any potential spread of the disease," he said.

Jeremy Blackburn, of the British Poultry Council, said that of the 17 million turkeys eaten each year in the UK, 10 million are consumed at Christmas. But while these are anxious times for farmers, suggestions of soaring prices were "extremely spurious", he added. East Anglia is one of three turkey breeding hotspots, along with the East Riding of Yorkshire and Wales.

The loss of 28,500 birds, while sad, remained unlikely to affect overall supply, said the National Farmers' Union. The NFU poultry board chairman Charles Bourns admitted the situation was serious but said: "I think this is a disease on the one farm, and I don't think it is going to get out and kill five million birds."

However, Defra confirmed there are more than four million turkeys, chickens, ducks and geese on the GB Poultry Register within the current surveillance zone, with a further 25 million birds registered in the wider restricted area.

Scientists are working on the theory that the virus is related to an outbreak of bird flu in dom-estic poultry in Germany and the Czech Republic earlier this year, suggesting it may have been spread by migrating birds – a claim hotly denied by the RSPB, which said there was no evidence of the disease in the wild populations currently in the UK.

One crumb of comfort for farmers is that free range birds – a tiny fraction of the overall number of farmed birds but most susceptible to infection under the wild bird theory – had already been taken indoors under EU rules in preparation for slaughter. In addition, more than 60 per cent of turkeys eaten at Christmas are bought frozen, meaning they had already been slaughtered and processed long before the current outbreak began.

There was no evidence yesterday of sudden turkey inflation. Tesco was offering an 8.8kg Bernard Matthews extra large turkey for half price at £16, while a 4.4kg bronze turkey was £12. Of more concern will be whether consumers keep faith with poultry. The February outbreak of bird flu at a Bernard Matthews farm cost the British poultry industry £9.4m in lost sales over a 12-week period when sales dropped 29 per cent.