No bird flu at inspected farms in Netherlands: authority

THE HAGUE (Xinhua) - No bird flu has been detected at nearby farms after an outbreak of low pathogenic H7N7 avian influenza in a poultry farm in the Netherlands, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs announced on Saturday.

After the bird flu was found in Barneveld, in the Dutch province of Gelderland on Thursday, a total of 17 farms in the 1 km area surrounding the poultry farm were investigated.

The Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) and the Central Veterinary Institute(CVI), which conducted the investigation, said there was no sign of avian influenza. The final results of the investigation will be released on Monday.

A total of 30,000 hens were culled following the outbreak of the latest bird flu.

Since 2:30 p.m.(1330 GMT) Thursday, a transport ban was enforced in an area of over 1 km around the infected farm for poultry, eggs, poultry manure and used bedding.

In November last year, bird flu was found on several commercial poultry farms in the Netherlands. The outbreak involved the highly pathogenic H5N8 variant, after which tens of thousands of poultry were culled.