SUPERVET Kate Sharp today revealed the action plan which will be launched if bird flu strikes a poultry farm in North or East Yorkshire.

Mrs Sharp, divisional veterinary manager for the State Veterinary Service in Yorkshire, said a series of measures would be taken to prevent the bug spreading across the region. These included:

The slaughter of all chickens, turkeys, geese, ducks and guinea fowl on the affected farm, plus a ban on the movement of animals

A protection zone within a 3km radius of the farm, within which poultry would be confined to buildings, movements of poultry and eggs would be restricted, and veterinary inspectors would carry out patrols and inspections of animals

A surveillance zone within a 10km radius, within which poultry might be confined, and poultry and eggs could only be moved under licence.

She said if a case of avian flu was confirmed anywhere in Britain, free range hens on all poultry farms across the country might have to come under cover to reduce the risk of infection.

She said: "They could be brought into a shed or outbuilding, or even into an area of straw bales covered over by corrugated sheeting."

But she stressed the avian flu virus was not as infectious as foot and mouth disease, which devastated British farming in 2001, and a range of biosecurity measures was already being suggested for farmers across Yorkshire to reduce the risk of it arriving here in the first place (see panel).

Mrs Sharp said all poultry farms with more than 50 birds were obliged to register their details with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) by February 28, under a European directive.

Farms with less than 50 could join the register after this date if they wanted. Farmers who need to register, but have not yet done so, should phone 0800 634 1112.

Mrs Sharp said North Yorkshire was currently thought to have more than 200 large specialist poultry units, almost 120 of which had more than 10,000 birds each at certain times, but there were also another 60 game farms, which were also vulnerable to the disease.

She stressed she would work throughout any incident in partnership with other organisations and local people, including the National Farmers' Union, local authorities, the poultry industry and private vets.

Mrs Sharp, who is based at Defra's regional offices in Leeds, said farmers suspecting their birds might have avian flu should phone their vet for advice. Any member of the public who saw ducks or wildfowl sick, dying or dead should not touch the birds, but phone a Defra helpline on 08459 335577.

:: Tackling a 'nightmare scenario'

HEALTH chiefs have been preparing for the nightmare scenario of bird flu striking down essential NHS staff.

North Yorkshire Health Protection Unit and Selby and York Primary Care Trust (PCT) carried out an exercise to see how they would cope if 25 per cent of the population were infected.

Plans were then modified to help teams see where their strengths and weaknesses lay.

Dr Louise Coole, pictured, a consultant in communicable diseases at North Yorkshire Health Protection Unit, said: "There have been several exercises where we've looked specifically at pandemics.

"We looked at the models for how a pandemic would affect us, and tried to take that down to a local level and think what do we need to put in place to manage it.

"Because we don't know exactly how bird flu would affect us, we can only go on research on the assumption that over the course of time of a pandemic 25 per cent of people would be affected.

"Maybe 25 per cent of people would be affected, but not all of them would necessarily be ill - sometimes people are infected but don't have any symptoms.

"If over a course of three to four months, 25 per cent of our staff were off ill, that becomes quite challenging for health services, as it would for any organisation."

Dr Coole said lessons had been learned and teams were now looking at how to bolster the plans. She stressed the contingency plans were a team effort.

"There are an awful lot of people putting in an awful lot of time right across the board," she said. "We're looking into the situation in Turkey and keeping a very close eye on it and getting daily updates from the teams out there."

Meanwhile, a leading medical journal has called for global efforts to control bird flu to be stepped up.

According to The Lancet, the current alert in Turkey should remind governments around the world "the status of preparations to protect human health remains an immediate, and serious, concern".

Updated: 10:03 Friday, January 20, 2006