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The county of Baxkiskun in Hungary. In June 2006, this farm, deserted today, was the departure point for an outbreak of avian flu which propagated to 28 other Hungarian farms.

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As a result, a million poultry fowl had to be destroyed. Behind the outbreak was the H5N1 virus introduced by wild birds.

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Today, the farm still bears the scars. Here, everything was burned.

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From the beginning, the same week when we found bird flu, we gave all the necessary information to the public dealing with the animals, what they should do against bird flu, how they should cooperate with the authorities.

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At the same time, we also made public the related EU decisions.

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But, of course, we were translating to the farmers, because sometimes the farmer is not so easy to realize what is right in the decision.

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Hungary followed European recommendations to contain the outbreak. But it also adopted other measures to pre-arm itself against the H5N1 virus, which may cause major economic losses to farmers and the poultry sector in general.

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Prevention is one of the key words of the European strategy against the virus, an example here in this farm.

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Today, these nets protect the ducks from wild birds.

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Before the outbreak, the ducks were on this parcel of land, in the open air.

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In order to prevent the introduction of the disease into domestic poultry farms, it is essential that domestic poultry are kept separated by wild birds, and also the contacts between farms, between domestic poultry farms are reduced to a minimum.

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Direct and indirect contact may take place, for example, through lorries, which dispatch the feeding stuff into the farms, so it is necessary to have in place good disinfection systems, etc.

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On this farm, confining the ducks was not the only measure. This trough contains liquid to disinfect vehicles.

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The workers also have to disinfect their feet and hands.

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The European Commission and the Member States have developed a set of bio-safety rules that the farmer is applying.

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We wash the wheels of the vehicles, we store the crops in covered areas, we pay more attention to who is coming in or going out of the farm.

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We reduce the traffic to the farm much more than before. Practically no one is coming in or out.

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Fighting bird fluid source means focusing on wild birds. There are natural reservoir of viruses, and at migration periods, risks are heightened as there are more birds and potential viruses.

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A number of European countries, including the Netherlands, have decided to reinforce monitoring of dead wild birds. This allows rapid detection of a highly pathogenic virus.

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The dead birds are normally just left there. Nobody cares. While you could get some interesting information out of them. And that's what we're trying to do with this project.

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7,000 voluntary observers spread across the Netherlands collect the bodies. These are then sent via a central organization to the national laboratories for analysis, and therefore rapid detection of the virus.

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Here in Weybridge, a few miles from London, this veterinary laboratory is undertaking this type of analysis of samples coming from the United Kingdom and also from the rest of Europe.

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The number of samples has increased significantly over the last two years. In 2005, there were 10,000. In 2006, this figure has already been multiplied by 12 in just the first nine months.

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It's a high figure, which is explained by the fact that the veterinary laboratory agency is the reference for the entire European Union when it comes to avian flu.

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We have many functions in terms of looking at the emergence of this new bird flu, H5N1. One is to work closely with countries that are affected to reach an early diagnosis and to understand how the virus is spreading and is it being accurately diagnosed.

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To analyze more than 120,000 samples, the Weybridge laboratory invested in new technologies. These robots are capable of processing 1,200 samples a day and supplying a reliable diagnosis for samples taken by the monitoring program in Holland, Great Britain and the rest of Europe.

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The research program we have here is nearly 50% of our total effort in working on avian influenza, so that demonstrates how important it is to actually be ahead of the virus if we possibly can and develop programs so that we can better understand all of the aspects about the virus and its properties and the host population that it affects.

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And that's critical for the authorities to develop good policy that's based on science.

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In terms of new strategies to counter the transfer of the virus from migrating birds to domestic poultry, the Netherlands, victim of an outbreak of avian flu in 2003, have taken a parallel route.

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The Ministry of Agriculture has decided to let the poultry farmers decide between confinement and vaccination.