Dutch allow poultry outdoors after bird flu scare

AMSTERDAM, Feb 14 (Reuters) The Netherlands is lifting an order to keep poultry indoors that was imposed to prevent a possible spread of avian flu after the deadly H5N1 strain was found in Britain earlier this month.

Its agricultural ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that farmers could allow poultry outdoors again from Feb 19.

''It can be said with relative certainty that the outbreak in England came about through indirect contact with infected companies in Hungary. The option that the outbreak was due to infected wild birds seems less likely,'' it said.

The Netherlands is Europe's second biggest poultry producer after France and a top world exporter.

The deadly H5N1 strain was found in a turkey farm in eastern England earlier this month, rekindling fears the disease could return to northern Europe this winter.

Britain said the virus was the same pathogenic Asian strain found last month in Hungary, where an outbreak among geese on a farm prompted the slaughter of thousands of birds.

Scientists have suggested migratory birds play an important role in the spread of the H5N1 virus, which originated in Asia and has killed more than 160 people worldwide since 2003 and has killed or forced the slaughter of more than 200 million birds.

The Netherlands has never reported H5N1 in commercial poultry but it was hit by H7N7 avian flu in 2003, which led to the culling of 30 million birds, about a third of the poultry flock, as well as one human death.

Reuters KR RN2305