UK chicken flu threat dismissed

Asian chicken flocks have been ravaged by the flu

The bird flu outbreak which prompted a ban on chicken imports from Thailand is unlikely to affect the UK, experts say.

The ban on all Thai poultry came into effect in all EU countries on Friday.

Bacteriologist Professor Hugh Pennington, of Aberdeen University, said there was no risk of contracting the disease by eating chicken meat.

He said: "The very, very small risk is that the virus might be carried into British chicken flocks rather than infecting people.

"It's an ultra-precautionary measure and will be needed only a relatively short time until the situation in Asia is clearer."

Peter Bradnock of the British Poultry Council said there was no risk of UK chickens becoming infected.

And he said the ban would have little impact on the price or availability of chicken, as most Thai chicken went to the service sector, not supermarkets.

Mr Bradnock said the overall amount of Thai chicken as a proportion of what the UK produces and imports from elsewhere was "not that significant."

Much of the imported chicken in the UK comes from Brazil and elsewhere in South America.

[It is] something that the EU rightly does when it is not sure what is going on Angus Nicholl, Health Protection Agency

Mr Bradnock said that while prices to suppliers could go up slightly as a result, an increase would not necessarily be passed on to consumers.

Angus Nicholl, of the Health Protection Agency, said the ban was purely precautionary.

He told BBC News: "[It is] something that the EU rightly does when it is not sure what is going on in order to make sure the public is protected.

"When it is satisfied there is not a risk it will relax that ban."

Scientists at the UK's National Institute for Biological Control Laboratory are working with the WHO to develop a vaccine which could be used to protect people against the disease.

Bird flu has been ravaging Asian flocks in recent weeks, but until now had only been known to have jumped to humans in Vietnam, where five people have died.

Cases of the disease have also been detected in poultry in recent weeks in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.

On Friday, Cambodia also reported an outbreak.

Thailand is the only Asian country to export poultry meat to the EU - in the first 10 months of last year EU member states imported 128,000 metric tons.

No live poultry was imported.