Bird flu has been detected for the first time this year at an organic chicken farm in the centre of the Netherlands, the government has announced.
About 23,000 chickens at the farm in Putten, east of Amsterdam, will be culled in the first Dutch outbreak of bird flu since December 2023.
"Unfortunately, after a long period of time, we are once again faced with a plant with bird flu infection," Agriculture Minister Femke Wiersma said, adding that the outbreak was not surprising but was "drastic".
Ten other poultry farms within a three-kilometre radius of the infected site will be monitored for ten days and a wider ban on transporting poultry into the area will be introduced, the government said.
"I can imagine this is a severe blow to the poultry farmers affected. We are taking appropriate measures and monitoring the situation closely," Viersma said in the statement.
While no national measures are planned because of the outbreak, an animal safety group will carry out a risk assessment.
The last outbreak of bird flu to affect a leading farmer was also discovered at a poultry farm in Putten in December last year.
Around 5.8 million birds had to be culled during the bird flu outbreak in 2021 and 2022, Dutch authorities said. | BGNES
