Hungary declared free of bird flu

Hungary has been declared free of avian influenza on Thursday, according to the regulations of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the farm ministry said on Thursday.

Hungary will now restart exports to countries outside the EU, the ministry said. Poultry is still to be fed and given water, and feed stored in closed spaces to prevent a recurrence, it said.

Presence of the lethal H5N8 virus strain was detected at 240 Hungarian farms between November last year and April 21, 2017.

Over 3.2 million birds were culled in eight counties across the country.

As we wrote on Monday, the Hungarian food authority (Nébih) detected banned insecticide fipronil in one batch of Hungarian eggs.

Also, we wrote before, the National Food Chain Safety Office (Nébih) warned of an occurrence of African swine fever (ASF), a disease with a near 100 percent fatality rate in pigs, just 20 kilometres from the Hungarian border.

Source: MTI