The Bird Flu in the United Kingdom Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

The Bird Flu in the United Kingdom - probe ExampleSturcke and Batty (2006) report stated that as m whatever as 46 countries guide recorded shucks flu cases in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas. deviation from being a health risk, the bird flu is also a massive economic threat. Freeman (2005) stated that the UK has about 120 million poultry, including chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese, outlay 1.3 billion a year. About 25 per cent of the egg-laying flock are kept outdoors and about 10 per cent of chickens raised for meat are free-range. (Sturcke, J. & Batty, D., 2006. Q&A Bird flu online, The Guardian, 27 April, viewed 14 May, 2006, http//www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,1591620,00.html)Boseley and Watt (2005) reported that after a meeting of EU veterinarians on the problem of bird flu, the British Veterinary Associations President stated that bird flu is inevitably going to arrive in the UKand there is a small but hearty danger that migrating wild birds could bring us a highly dangerous strain of the virus. (Boseley, S. & Watt, N., 2005. Vets say arrival of bird flu in UK is inevitable online, The Guardian, 26 August, viewed 14 May, 2006, http//www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,14207,1556846,00.html)In a 2006 report, Sturcke and Batty stated incidents of the bird flu virus in the United Kingdom. A dead swan was institute in Cellardyke and a parrot died in an Essex quarantine zone. Both incidents occurred in 2005, and both birds were put together to have died from the H5N1 virus. In a farm west of Norwich, a number of chickens were found to have tested positive of the less deadly H7 strain of bird flu, which also infects humans. (Sturcke, J. & Batty, D., 2006. Q&A Bird flu online, The Guardian, 27 April, viewed 14 May, 2006, http//www.guardian.co.uk/birdflu/story/0,,1591620,00.html )Needless to say, the alarm and threat of a widespread bird flu infection has prompted the UK government to take various measures in an attempt to save such a pandem ic. BBC News (2006) reported that one such step was the UKs ban on imports of live chickens from Croatia, Turkey, Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Laos, Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Malaysia, South Africa, and North Korea, where bird flu outbreaks have occurred. (BBC News, 2006. Britains bird flu preparations online. viewed 14 May, 2006, .)The finding of dead swans in Fife and in Scotland prompted government to create a huge exclusion zone to prevent any further spread of the bird flu virus. Henderson, Macleod and English (2006) reported that a 1,000 square myocardial infarction exclusion zone was set up, stretching from the Forth lane Bridge, north of Edinburgh, to Stonehaven in the north east and Perth in the north west. It greatly expands the 3km (1.8 mile) radius protection zone and 10km (6.2 mile) surveillance zone established around Cellardyke. (Henderson, M., Macleod, A., & English, S., 2006. 1,000 sq mile exclusion zone set up to combat r isk of virus spreading online, The Times, 07 April, viewed 14 May, 2006, http//www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,25149-2122749,00.html)Within that exclusion zone, there are found around 3.1 million domestic birds kept on about 175 poultry farms and would require that owners of 48 free-range farms will have to bring their