Turkey waste 'was linked to bird flu'

Offcuts and a telltale label led investigators to link outbreak at Bernard Matthews farm with its Hungarian businesses

Dumped turkey waste, offcuts and a telltale label provided the evidence that allowed investigators to link the outbreak of bird flu at the Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk and the company's business in Hungary, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.

The revelations come as the Environment minister Ben Bradshaw said the company could face prosecution for a "biosecurity breach" at the plant in the village of Holton.

Investigators believe that the virus got into turkey sheds at the farm from offcuts and waste from the imported meat, which was processed at the site. They add that a label found at the plant suggests that the company was "economical with the truth" about how close its Hungarian operations were to an eruption of the disease in the country last month.

The company denies this, saying it "always fully co-operated with the investigation" and that it "had never not given them all the information they have asked for".

The two discoveries have led ministers to abandon their earlier conviction that the virus was brought to the farm by wild birds, and underlined an international reappraisal of the role of factory farming and the poultry trade in the worldwide spread of the disease.

David Nabarro, the UN co-ordinator for avian and human flu, said the trade was behind the spread of the virus this year.

The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) admitted yesterday that it had known, since long before the crisis, that the Bernard Matthews plant regularly imported turkey meat from Hungary, where the disease broke out on a goose farm in the town of Szentes, in the south of the country.

Yet ministers and officials attending a crisis meeting of the Cobra emergency committee were convinced that the disease had been carried to the farm by at least one of the gulls that habitually throng the site.

That afternoon, David Miliband, Secretary of State for the Environment, airily dismissed a "Hungarian connection" when questioned about it in the House of Commons by his Conservative shadow, Peter Ainsworth. But by Thursday morning ministers were rapidly revising their position. Their change of mind began when blood tests indicated that the strain of H5N1 found in Suffolk was identical to the one that had caused the Hungarian outbreak.

The result, which is expected to be confirmed by more tests tomorrow, pointed to a direct connection; had the virus been carried from Hungary to Britain by a wild bird it would have mutated slightly on the way.

The first smoking gun came when investigators found that the turkey waste and offcuts from the Hungarian meat had been placed in what they call a "near open" skip. They believe that gulls or rats may have picked up the infection from these, enabling the virus to get into the turkey sheds.

"The waste and offcuts were not very well treated in biosecurity terms," said one investigator yesterday.

But it remains a mystery how, if the meat was infected, it had become so in the first place. It seemed improbable, as the company kept repeating, that the meat had been imported from its plant in Sarvar, north-west Hungary, some 160 miles away from the outbreak on the goose farm.

But then a "sharp-sighted" Defra investigator spotted a label that linked the meat to an abattoir at the town of Kecskemet, some 30 miles away from the farm. Investigators are now looking into whether it was contaminated there by other meat from the infected area.

They stress that Bernard Matthews will have done nothing illegal in using the abattoir, which is outside the restricted area placed around the stricken farm. But they accuse the company of being "economical with the truth" in not telling Defra about it earlier.

"The question is about how forthcoming it has been," an investigator said.

The inquiry is also focusing on how the virus spread on the Suffolk farm, and it is here that evidence might be found which could lead to a prosecution of the company. The possibility that the virus reached Holton by another means, such as on the wheels of a lorry coming from Hungary or on the boots of its driver, is also being considered, though investigators believe this is less likely. They have ruled out its being brought in by an itinerant worker.

Bernard Matthews confirmed that it did use the slaughterhouse at Kecskemet, but cast doubt on the possibility of cross-infection there, by saying that, according to its information, only turkeys were killed there, not geese.

Compassion in World Farming yesterday published a report which concluded that factory farming was "creating highly virulent avian flu strains". It added: "We factor in the frequent flow of goods within and between countries. The potential for disease spread is high."

VIEW ON THE STREET

As supermarkets brace themselves for a downturn in sales of poultry in the light of latest reports on bird flu in Bernard Matthews's flock, the 'IoS' asked readers how they feel about eating turkey:

"I won't be buying it. You have to be safe nowadays. You don't know what the next thing is going to be"

Alexander Bedford, 76, Charlton

"I smoke. When you consider how many people that kills it's quite small. So I'm not worried"

Katharina Herrmann, 26, Greenwich

"I'll stop eating it when the first person drops dead. It's not an epidemic yet, so there's no reason to worry"

Tunde Tewogbade, 35, Kent