Hungary denies British Bird Flu Link
By Raza Mumtaz 'Pakistan Times' Executive Editor/UK Bureau Chief

LONDON (UK): Hungarian officials say there is no evidence to prove that an outbreak of bird flu in Britain was caused by infected poultry from Hungary.

Hungary's deputy chief vet told the BBC he still believed that wild birds may have carried the virus to the UK.

But he said there was a suspicion the trail of infection led back to Hungary.

Last week, almost 160,000 turkeys were culled at a UK food plant - which has a sister site in Hungary - after the discovery of the H5N1 virus.

The H5N1 virus does not pose a large-scale threat to humans, as it cannot pass easily from one person to another.

But experts fear the virus could mutate at some point in the future and trigger a flu pandemic, potentially putting millions of human lives at risk.

Infected poultry

Bernard Matthews owns the turkey farm in Suffolk where the outbreak occurred, and also Saga Foods in Hungary.

UK government officials are investigating Bernard Matthews' conduct, after it emerged that the firm had been shipping partly processed meat from Hungary into the UK.

Investigators in Budapest are trying to establish whether the Bernard Matthews plant in western Hungary had received consignments of infected poultry.

Last month bird flu was discovered at geese farms in the south east of the country.

Saga Foods has denied that the virus entered Britain from its product.●