Bird flu confirmed at East Yorkshire farm

A case of bird flu has been confirmed at a duck breeding farm in East Yorkshire, officials have said.
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The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said the risk to public health was very low. The poultry is being culled and a six-mile exclusion zone is in place.

The exact strain has not been confirmed, but the deadly H5N1 form has been ruled out by Defra officials.

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The virus spreads between birds and, in rare cases, can affect humans.

The case is the first in the UK since 2008, when chickens on a farm in Banbury, Oxfordshire tested positive for the virus.

On Sunday, an outbreak of a highly contagious strain of bird flu was discovered at a poultry farm in the Netherlands.

The Dutch government has temporarily banned the transport of poultry and eggs.

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The exclusion zone around the Yorkshire farm at Nafferton, near Driffield, will prevent all poultry and poultry waste being transferred in or out of the area, and some 6,000 ducks will be culled, Defra told BBC News.

t said the flu strain had been identified as the H5 virus, stressing that it was not the H5N1 strain.