GERMANY and the Netherlands have particular reason to be worried about bird flu.

An outbreak of the avian H7N7 virus in 2003 infected 89 people in the Netherlands, prompting the Dutch Government to order the destruction of 30 million chickens.

The effect on human beings of the virus was mainly minor eye infections, and despite consensus that the virus was harmless to human beings, a 57-year-old vet died in the southern city of Den Bosch, contracting the virus two days after working on an infected farm.

Although his death was officially recorded as pneumonia, the Dutch Health Ministry said there was “a strong indication that the man died because of the consequences of the bird flu virus”.

The Netherlands was the European Union’s biggest poultry exporter at that time, and the fourth biggest in the world.

Bringing the Dutch poultry industry to a halt cost nearly €2 million (£1.4 million) a day.

Belgium slaughtered about 2.7 million birds in an attempt to prevent avian flu spreading across Europe, with the result that British poultry prices soared.

At the time a third of Britain’s imported chicken came from the Netherlands and Belgium.

The German authorities also ordered the culling of about 400,000 birds, with concern focusing on poultry that had come into contact with birds from the Netherlands.

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