WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland will cull over 900,000 hens in a farm in western Poland due to a bird flu outbreak which was discovered on Tuesday evening, state news agency PAP quoted local veterinary authorities as saying.
The H5N8 bird flu outbreak in the village of Wroniawy is the 33rd one in Poland this year, said PAP citing the Chief Veterinary Inspectorate data.
“It is a farm of 930,000 laying hens. … A canal runs behind the farm, there are also fields nearby, with geese and other wild birds,” PAP quoted local veterinary authorities as saying. It added that the cull will start on Thursday and may continue for up to six days.
Poland’s Chief Veterinary Inspectorate and local veterinary services were not immediately available to comment.
Risk to humans from the disease is considered low, but past outbreaks among farm birds have required extensive slaughtering programmes to contain them.
(Reporting by Agnieszka Barteczko and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
