DEFRA secretary David Miliband has defended comments he made in the House of Commons last Monday (5 February) about the Hungarian connection to the avian flu outbreak in Suffolk.
DEFRA revealed last week that contaminated poultry meat from Hungary is the most likely source of the outbreak of H5N1 avian flu at the Bernard Matthews turkey farm at Holton, Suffolk.
In a blog entry on Monday (12 February), Mr Miliband said that in answer to a question about the source of the virus in Suffolk being imported wild chicks from Hungary he had replied that the chicks all came from within this country, ‘so there is no Hungarian connection of that sort’.
His blog post added: “I had previously made clear that while wild birds were most likely the source of the outbreak, ‘that does not mean that we should not pursue other avenues in a serious way, with the greatest of speed, and we are doing so’.”
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