Bird flu hits Germany, 160,000 geese slaughtered

Following an outbreak of bird flu at a farm in southern Germany 160,000 geese have been slaughtered and a three-kilometer exclusion zone has been set up around the farm.

German health officials discovered the deadly H5N1 bird-flu virus during routine testing at a poultry farm in Wachenroth, Bavaria, near the city of Erlangen, where 400 geese were found dead.

In the biggest ever culling operation in Germany, a team of eight vets and numerous poultry workers at the farm culled the remainder of the birds after the lethal strain of the virus was found in five of the birds.

Erlangen is about 200 kilometers north of Munich, and officials are trying to track down the cause of the infection.

Some reports initially suggest the infected animals came from another poultry farm in the northern state of Lower Saxony, but this has not been confirmed.

Bavarian Health Secretary Otmar Bernhard says they have not been able to pinpoint the source of outbreak.

Since it re-emerged in 2003 the H5N1 strain of avian influenza has killed nearly 200 people in recent years, almost always through direct contact with infected poultry.

Most of the victims have been in Asia and to date there have been no human deaths from bird flu in Europe despite recent outbreaks in several countries, including Germany and the Czech Republic.

Earlier this year wild birds and some domestic poultry were hit by bird flu in other parts of Germany.

Wild birds can also infect domesticated birds with the highly pathogenic strain and scientists fear it will ultimately mutate into a strain that could be transmitted among humans.

Until this outbreak in Bavaria, apart from one in eastern Germany, all previously reported cases were in the wild.