In the Netherlands, from midnight (Wednesday 12 February) a confinement obligation applies to poultry farms. Agriculture Minister Carola Schouten instituted this after bird flu type H5N8 was detected in Germany at a hobby farm in Bretzfeld, Germany.
The recent infection in Germany is more western than previous infections, so according to Schouten there is a chance that the virus is also present in wild waterfowl populations in other parts of Western Europe. That is why the ministry now also estimates the risk of contamination of a Dutch poultry farm to be greater.
4 weeks
For the time being, the stay-up obligation applies for a period of 4 weeks. The expert group will meet again in 4 weeks to assess the current situation, the ministry reports. For transports from Germany, there is now also an obligation for a second cleaning and disinfection for means of transport for sensitive animal species. This is monitored by the NVWA.
On December 31, 2019, there was an outbreak of bird flu in Eastern Poland. That was the first HPAI outbreak in the European Union this winter season. Outbreaks have since been reported from several countries in Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Germany and Ukraine).
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