Hungary, Britain turkey trade investigated

By Kate Kelland and Andras Gergely

LONDON/BUDAPEST (Reuters) - British agriculture officials were investigating reports on Monday that turkey meat imported from Hungary was processed near a British farm which was contaminated by bird flu and then exported back to Hungary.

A spokeswoman for Britain's agriculture ministry said checks were being made after Hungary's deputy chief vet Lajos Bognar told British media that turkey meat imported from Hungary last week by Bernard Matthews, Europe's biggest turkey producer, was processed and exported -- some of it to Hungary.

An avian flu affected poultry farm is seen at Holton, eastern England in this February 3, 2007 file photo. British agriculture officials were investigating reports on Monday that turkey meat imported from Hungary was processed near a British farm which was contaminated by bird flu and then exported back to Hungary. (REUTERS / Luke MacGregor)

"The whole thing is subject to investigations to check exactly what moved where and when," the spokeswoman said.

Budapest has said turkey meat from a plant near the site of a Hungarian bird flu outbreak was sold to various parts of Europe.

According to the British authorities, a consignment of turkey meat from Hungary arrived on Tuesday at a processing plant near a Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk, eastern England, where, three days earlier, an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus was confirmed.

Bognar told Channel 4 News late on Sunday that truck loads of the meat had then left the plant in Holton and arrived back at Bernard Matthews' Hungarian plant on Wednesday or Thursday.

"I can say that from the protection zone, from the UK, six trucks arrived from there last week, to Hungary," he said.

The meat imported by Bernard Matthews came from a slaughterhouse 50 km from the site of a Hungarian bird flu outbreak in January -- outside restricted zones.

But the Suffolk processing plant was just a few hundred metres from sheds where 160,000 turkeys were culled earlier this month after the bird flu virus was found.

TEST RESULTS DUE

European Union officials said they were expecting results by Tuesday of tests into whether the strain of H5N1 bird flu found in Britain was directly linked to the one in Hungary. "However, the results cannot determine how the strain of bird flu actually arrived in the UK," an official said.

Hungary's agriculture ministry confirmed turkey meat from a plant in the town of Kecskemet had come via a Bernard Matthews plant in Sarvar, western Hungary, and was sold to various parts of Europe including Britain, but it could not have transmitted the virus. "Every item was checked and there were no problems reported in any other export destinations," a spokesman said.

Britain's Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said no rules were broken by the imports and it was checking if the exports were also within regulations.

"Depending on the type of product, date of slaughter and which farm it originated on, it is possible that poultry product from the Suffolk plant could have met the licensing requirements for movement outside the restricted area," it said.

Defra has repeatedly said there is no risk of cooked poultry meat being contaminated since heat quickly kills the virus.

Britain initially said the bird flu outbreak probably came from a wild bird. But last week it said there might be a link with Hungary when tests showed the virus was identical to the Hungarian one and may have been spread by infected meat.

Hungary has said it will submit a report to the European Commission on Tuesday which it says will prove there can be no link between the cases in Britain and Hungary.

A Commission spokesman said he was confident EU rules were tough enough: "We do not have at this point any doubts about the effectiveness of EU rules to combat avian influenza."

The H5N1 virus has spread into the Middle East, Africa and Europe since it re-emerged in Asia in 2003. It remains largely an animal disease, but it can kill people who come into close contact with infected birds.

(Additional reporting by Darren Ennis in Brussels)