ONE-MILE exclusion zones are to be set up in Britain to protect human health if a wild bird is found to be infected with the deadly avian flu virus.

The emergency measures, also designed to protect poultry from infection by wild birds, recall the spectre of the foot-and-mouth outbreak of five years ago. They were announced yesterday, as the H5N1 strain continued to spread westwards.

Germany, Austria and Denmark are the latest countries to report wild swans infected with H5 avian flu. While the virus has yet to infect domestic birds, consumers across the Continent have turned their backs on poultry, causing a collapse in prices.

Poultry traders in Britain yesterday reported that they are being offered chicken from the Continent for as little as 40p per pound, compared with prices for home-reared chickens of 50p to 55p per pound.

Inside the exclusion zones all poultry movements will be halted. Footpaths may also be closed. All poultry and pigs within the area will be tested for the virus. The entire flock or herd will be culled if any are infected.

There will also be a six-mile surveillance zone with strict veterinary checks on any poultry or pig farms within it. Any farmer in a surveillance area wishing to send chickens to the food chain will need a licence.

The controls will last at least 21 days in exclusion zones and 30 days in surveillance zones.

The collapse in chicken consumption across mainland Europe is so severe that the Health Commissioner, Markos Kyprianou, was forced to urge people to keep eating poultry. In Italy sales are down 50 per cent since the weekend and in France and Germany almost 20 per cent.

There are no plans yet for British poultry to be ordered indoors, an action already taken by France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Slovenia and in parts of Norway. Denmark called for flocks of more than 100 to be housed indoors, while Germany has ordered all birds to be locked inside from tomorrow. Switzerland and Belgium are planning similar action.

Wild birds in Britain continue to be tested for the virus, but a spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said yesterday that the risk to the UK remained low.

Charles Bourns, chairman of the National Farmers’ Union poultry board, last night told shoppers to “buy British” and look for British symbols on packs to be certain of what they were eating.

European Commission officials called for calm but said that there was a “high risk” of the disease spreading further.

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