WELLINGTON: New Zealand has placed strict movement controls on a commercial egg farm in the southern region of Otago after testing confirmed its chickens are infected with bird flu, but said it is not the strain causing concern globally.
Tests at the Mainland Poultry free-range farm identified "a high pathogenic H7N6 subtype of avian influenza,” Biosecurity New Zealand deputy director-general Stuart Anderson said in a statement on Monday.
"While it is not the H5N1 type circulating among wildlife around the world that has caused concern, we are taking the find seriously.”
Concerns about bird flu have risen as the H5N1 strain of the virus has spread throughout US poultry and dairy farms. While most human infections of bird flu continue to be in farm workers exposed to infected animals, health officials are on the watch for any indications of spread among humans.
Anderson said the strain found on the New Zealand farm "is unlikely to be transmitted to mammals.”
There have been no reports of ill or dead birds on other poultry farms, and there are no human health or food safety concerns, he said.
Biosecurity New Zealand believes laying hens foraging outside the shed were exposed to a low pathogenic virus from wild waterfowl, which can mutate on interaction with chickens.
A 10-kilometre (six-mile) buffer zone has been placed around the rural farm as well as restrictions preventing movement of animals, equipment and feed while the affected birds are culled. - Bloomberg
