Bird flu victim describes ordeal

Barbara Cowling and Tony Williams were under virtual house arrest

A smallholder has spoken for the first time of the moment she and her partner realised they had caught bird flu.

Barbara Cowling and Tony Williams showed the symptoms after an outbreak among chickens at their home near Cerrigydrudion, Conwy, in May.

She said the "most scary" moment of the ordeal was when doctors arrived in the early hours to administer medicine.

At one time, 252 people, including pupils and staff at a school near Denbigh, were monitored for the virus.

A 1km (0.62 mile) restriction zone was put in place around the property at Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr on 24 May after the "low pathogenic" H7N2 strain of bird flu was confirmed in chickens which died there.

The outbreak was eventually declared over on 5 June.

Health officials stressed the disease found was not the more virulent H5N1.

Of the 252 monitored, 17 people suffering conjunctivitis or a flu-like illness were identified with the bird flu virus.

Nobody really sat us down and said, This is what's happening' Barbara Cowling

Ms Cowling said: "The most scary thing was the doctors coming at quarter to three in the morning to give us all this stuff.

"That was scary and I was thinking, 'Gosh, I really must be ill."

'In the dark'

Although "quite ill at the time," Ms Cowling said she was not initially worried about developing bird flu symptoms, because "I didn't think it was the really deadly serious one".

At the time of the outbreak, police guarded the entrance to the property and enforced the exclusion zone, while officials from the National Public Health Service for Wales (NPHS) investigated the outbreak.

Ms Cowling said officials handled the situation "quite well," but said she and her partner were "a bit left in the dark".

She added: "Nobody really sat us down and said, 'This is what's happening,' which I thought was a bit wrong really."

Staff and pupils at Ysgol Henllan, Denbigh, were among those treated

She described being under virtual house arrest as "absolutely horrible," adding: "We couldn't go out at all.

"You couldn't go to the shops, we couldn't do anything.

"We had to rely on people, phone people - friends and family - to actually go and meet the police in the village to transfer whatever we wanted and to bring them up here."

The outbreak began after the couple bought chickens from Chelford market near Macclesfield, Cheshire, and one died the next day, followed by several others.

Ms Cowling said: "The first diagnosis from the vet was, 'Don't worry about it, it's within the egg chamber and that's why they're dying,' so we took no notice until the next week."

The following week, she came home from work one day to find "people in white suits" at the property. The remaining chickens were later slaughtered.

She added: "When everybody came the next day, the police were here, Defra [Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs] were here, the ministry were here, yourselves [BBC Wales] were here, and I just thought, 'Right, there's a major problem here."

Despite the outbreak, she said she would consider keeping chickens again, but not from the same dealer.