Existing measures are unable to control the bird flu epidemic. Agriculture Minister Piet Adema is therefore investigating new interventions that should provide protection, especially in the longer term. This includes mapping risk areas where expansion of poultry farms may become more difficult.
The highly pathogenic bird flu has continued to circulate throughout the past year. Nearly 5 million chickens, ducks and turkeys have already been culled during this epidemic. The costs are already in the tens of millions of euros.
Adema wants poultry farmers to draw up a plan together with veterinarians from next year to limit the risk of contamination on their farms as much as possible. Unorthodox measures, such as laser beams, are also being looked at to keep out other potentially infected birds around farms.
The minister will map out whether vaccines are feasible, available, working and safe in order to accelerate their introduction. In addition, the minister is in consultation with poultry farmers about the financial consequences of vaccines.
At the insistence of coalition party D66, the Ministry of Agriculture is working on guidelines for dealing with sick and dead (wild) birds, where the virus is also often found. The same party also wants to make it more difficult for poultry farms to establish themselves in areas where the risk of contamination is high.
Preventing expansion
When there is a clear overview of these risk areas, Adema wants to look at the possibilities of ‘preventing’ settling or expanding here, the minister writes in a letter to parliament. ‘At the moment, neither I nor local authorities have the legal instruments at their disposal.’
Adema emphasizes that zoonoses such as bird flu are also taken into account in the nitrogen approach. Last week he already announced a national confinement obligation due to the increasing number of infections.