A clean-up operation on the Bernard Matthews farm has begun
A vet who attended the Suffolk bird flu outbreak is in hospital suffering from a mild respiratory illness, the Health Protection Agency has said.
The vet, who has not been named, was undergoing tests at a Nottingham hospital - but the HPA said it did not expect results until Wednesday morning.

The treatment was a "precautionary measure" and bird flu was just one of the tests to be run, the HPA said.

Almost 160,000 turkeys were culled after the outbreak on a farm in Holton.

The agency said it was "highly unlikely" the vet would have been contaminated because everyone involved would have taken antiviral drugs and worn "full protective clothing".

The HPA's Dr John Watson said: "Avian flu is just one of the tests our laboratory will be carrying out to establish the cause of this respiratory infection.
"It should be remembered that chest infections and fevers are common at this time of year when ordinary seasonal flu circulates."
The Strategic Health Authority in East Anglia said it was monitoring the situation, adding: "There is no need to panic."
The H5N1 strain - which has caused dozens of human deaths in Asia - was found in the turkeys on the Bernard Matthews site in Suffolk.

The H5N1 virus does not pose a large-scale threat to humans because it cannot pass easily from one person to another.
However, 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.
A 3km (1.9 mile) protection zone and a 10km (6.2 mile) surveillance zone are in place around the farm.
Poultry owners in a wider restricted zone, covering 2,090 sq km (807 sq miles) around Holton, have been told to keep their flocks isolated from wild birds.

Senior vets from the 27 EU member states discussed the outbreak at a meeting on Tuesday, and later the European Commission said it was satisfied with the UK's response.
An international conference on the possibility of vaccination will take place in Verona in March.
Britain is Europe's second-largest poultry producer after France, with annual exports totalling £300m.
Bernard Matthews commercial director Bart Dalla Mura insisted there would be no adverse effect on the poultry industry.
He said consumers were "savvy enough" to see that the disease was being dealt with.

I really feel nervous about this. I know it's unlikley that the flu will pass to humans but it is not impossible. It does concern me that now it is on our doorstep, people don't seem so bothered. I was actually very close to where Matthew's Turkey Farm is based a couple of weeks back, and I knwo that they have been driving infected turkeys around by the lorry load recently without much consideration for people's H&S concerns. And this guy that has gone to hospital - well he's ended up in the one where my mother works!

I thought Bernard Matthews and his vile concentration camps for turkeys would be most likely to get it, so I dont; feel surprised. I bet turkey sales have gone down, not that I would touch it anyway. Disgusting industry - if you saw the misery these animals live in you would not touch those turkeys. :angry:

They have said he hasnt got the disease now. :)

Thank God. :)

On our recent trip to Morocco we saw hens in cages at the back of the butcher's stalls.They were weighed in front of the customer and then dispatched and plucked on-the-spot.This may seem cruel to our western eyes,but surely it's far less hypocritical than the Bernard Matthews style 'concentration camps'-'bootiful' they most certainly are not.

Yeah I dislike that but it is certainly less hypocritical. Honestly, I have heard about these Bernard Matthews places and it is awful. It's all one big production efficency drive with no care for the welfare of the turkeys. They never see daylight and even the eggs are destroyed if they dont; look right.