BRITIAN:The H5N1 bird flu strains found in Hungary and Britain are 99.96 per cent genetically identical and almost certainly linked, according to a final analysis of the viruses by the EU Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, southern England.
The results backed the British government's working hypothesis that the bird flu spread somehow from poultry to poultry and not from wild bird to poultry.
If the disease had been carried by a wild bird to the Bernard Matthews turkey farm in Suffolk, it would not have shown the same similarities, said scientists yesterday.
"These results indicate that the viruses are essentially identical," said deputy chief vet Fred Landeg. "But we are not discounting any line of inquiry and this is an ongoing investigation."
"We have still not found any evidence of illegal or unsafe movements of poultry products from Hungary to the UK," said a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs spokesman.
The analysis came as an official Hungarian investigation reported it had found no evidence that any meat had reached Britain from a restricted zone.
EU health spokesman Philip Tod said: "Based on their investigation no animals were sent to either slaughterhouse from the restricted zone since November 2006. According to the Hungarian authorities, the meat couldn't be the vector for transmission."
But Mr Tod questioned the level of co-operation between the company and the UK authorities. "It is understandable where you have a situation where you have 160,000 turkeys that have to be slaughtered but . . . it is important to have full and transparent co-operation with the authorities to handle such an outbreak."