Hungary import 'link' to bird flu

Partly-processed birds from Hungary were being trucked to Suffolk

The bird flu outbreak at a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk may be linked to imports from the firm's plant in Hungary, a government vet has said.

The pathogenic H5N1 strain was found on a Hungarian geese farm in January.

Deputy Chief Vet Fred Landeg said imported "poultry product" was a possible route of infection.

Meanwhile, tests on culled turkeys from three sheds on the Suffolk farm, near the shed in which the virus was first found, also showed strains of H5N1.

'Poultry to poultry'

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said preliminary tests showed the Hungary and UK viruses "may well be identical".

Geese on the infected farm near Szentes in southern Hungary were destroyed last month, after the EU's first case of bird flu for about six months was found.

Earlier this month, tens of thousands of turkeys were culled at the Bernard Matthews farm at Holton after the H5N1 virus, which causes bird flu, was found there.

The company has a processing plant in Sarvar, in Hungary - about 160 miles away from Szentes.

There is no suggestion of any infection at our Hungarian plant Bernard Matthews' commercial director Bart Dalla Mura

Defra confirmed "partly-processed" turkey had been transported by lorry from Hungary to the Suffolk farm each week up to the time of the Suffolk outbreak.

The turkeys were taken to a processing plant next to the premises which became infected.

Mr Landeg said the "working hypotheses" was that the infection came into the farm through such an import.

He said the latest tests "seems to indicate that this is an infection that has been passed from poultry to poultry", rather than from wild birds.

BBC science correspondent David Shukman said the news raised two questions: "How on earth did the turkeys in Hungary get infected in the first place, and then secondly how did the infection pass from the processing building in Suffolk, to the sheds where the live turkeys were being kept?"

He said the fact that traces of infection had been found in three more sheds, also raised the question: "How did that infection jump from one building to another?"

Safe to eat

Bernard Matthews stressed it was co-operating fully with the Defra investigation.

But commercial director Bart Dalla Mura said he would be "very surprised" if Hungary turned out to be the source of infection.

"We do transport meat but we don't move live birds between Hungary and the UK," he said.

"There is no suggestion of any infection at our Hungarian plant and no suggestion of any infection in turkeys in Hungary.

"If we had any concerns about our Hungarian operation we would say so - as we did at Holton. We operate with as much rigour in Hungary as we do in the UK."

The firm added that Bernard Matthews products were perfectly safe to eat. Defra also said the risk to human health remained negligible, and properly cooked poultry was safe to eat.

Defra said poultry is continuing to be imported into Britain from Hungary as long as it is not from restricted areas.

The H5N1 virus does not pose a large-scale threat to humans, as it cannot pass easily from one person to another.

Experts, however, fear the virus could mutate at some point in the future, and in its new form trigger a flu pandemic, potentially putting millions of human lives at risk.

reposted from: bbc
my highlights / emphasis / edits

Branson offers $25m prize to remove 1 billion tonnes CO2 per year

Branson launches $25m climate bid

Richard Branson and Al Gore launched the climate initiative

Millions of pounds are on offer for the person who comes up with the best way of removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson launched the competition today in London alongside former US vice-president Al Gore.

A panel of judges will oversee the prize, including James Lovelock and Nasa scientist James Hansen.

Sir Richard said humankind must realise the scale of the crisis it faced.

Existing options for carbon storage

"The Earth cannot wait 60 years," he said at the news conference. "I want a future for my children and my children's children. The clock is ticking."

He said if the planet was to survive, it was vital to find a way of getting rid of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

He said he believed offering the $25m (£12.5m) Earth Challenge Prize was the best way of finding a solution.

Moral challenge

Overseeing the innovations are James Hansen, the noted climate scientist and head of the Nasa Institute for Space Studies; the inventor of Gaia theory James Lovelock; UK environmentalist Sir Crispin Tickell; and Australian mammalogist and palaeontologist Tim Flannery.

They are looking for a method that will remove at least one billion tonnes of carbon per year from the atmosphere.

Al Gore, the former presidential candidate turned environmental campaigner, is also on the judging panel.

He said: "It's a challenge to the moral imagination of humankind to actually accept the reality of the situation we are now facing.

"We're not used to thinking of a planetary emergency, and there's nothing in our prior history as a species that equips us to imagine that we, as human beings, could actually be in the process of destroying the habitability of the planet for ourselves."

His recent film, An Inconvenient Truth, focused on global warming.

Stuart Haszeldine, professor of geology at the University of Edinburgh, commented: "Richard Branson is ahead of the pack in getting to grips with CO2 in the atmosphere.

"His decisive action places shame on the dithering of the UK Treasury, who will not let British power companies build CO2 capture plants, in case they are too expensive.

"I hope all other businesses, large and small, follow his lead. Yes, it's true Branson's company may benefit eventually, but we will all benefit, by a cleaner, greener planet. We all share the same atmosphere."

Carbon capture and storage is already a key area of research.

Scientists have been looking into removing the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere and storing it in oil and gas fields, injecting it deep into the ocean, or chemically transforming it into solids or liquids that are thermodynamically stable.

However, these methods have raised concerns, notably because of the possibility of leakage from the storage sites and fears that C02 dissolved in large quantities in the ocean might harm marine ecosystems.

Other scientists are also looking at schemes that might "scrub" the air of CO2, collecting the gas for safe storage; but many critics say the energy required to achieve this would make such an approach self-defeating.

Sir Richard Branson has already pledged to invest $3bn (£1.6bn) in profits from his travel firms, such as airline Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains, towards research into renewable energy technologies.

Richard Branson and Al Gore launched the climate initiative

EXISTING OPTIONS FOR CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE 1. CO2 pumped into disused coal fields displaces methane which can be used as fuel 2. CO2 can be pumped into and stored safely in saline aquifers 3. CO2 pumped into oil fields helps maintain pressure, making extraction easier

reposted from: BBC
my highlights / emphasis / edits