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Article: Unruffled; Bird flu.(Britain's first big bird-flu outbreak)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- February 10, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Money--not health--is most at risk from Britain's first big bird-flu outbreak
THE relentless westward march of avian flu from its Asian home had, until last week, left Britain mostly untouched. A dead swan washed up on the Scottish coast was found last April to have died from the H5N1 strain, the most virulent version of the disease. Later that month an outbreak of the less worrisome H7 strain led to the slaughter of 35,000 chickens in Norfolk. But when on February 3rd laboratory tests confirmed that thousands of turkeys at a Suffolk farm had died from H5N1, Britain's first big outbreak had begun. Over the next few days, officials culled almost 160,000 birds that ...