Austria’s health ministry has declared the entire country a risk area for bird flu and introduced stricter security measures that came into effect this morning, Euronews reports.
The decision follows an outbreak of bird flu in the Amstetten district of Lower Austria seven days ago, which led to the destruction of around 18,000 animals.
The Austrian army will start removing dead animals and decontaminating trucks and containers today.
A three-kilometer protection zone has been set up around the affected farms.
In addition, a so-called surveillance zone with a diameter of 10 kilometers has been set up, which will remain in force for 30 days.
Veterinary image tasked with checking 78 farms in the zone to determine whether there are any cases of bird flu.
Bird flu is a highly contagious viral disease that occurs mainly in poultry and wild waterfowl, and transmission to humans is rare.
Twenty-five districts in Lower and Upper Austria, Styria, Salzburg, Carinthia and Burgenland have been classified as areas with a significantly increased risk.
Due to the increased risk of infection, feeding animals outdoors is prohibited throughout Austria, and contact between poultry and wild birds must be prevented with nets or roofs.
“In order to prevent the spread, the whole of Austria is now declared an area with an increased risk,” the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health explained.
Authorities do not yet know how the first infections in Austria began, but cases were first detected in wild birds and domestic poultry in September, around the same time as catastrophic floods hit several areas of Lower Austria.
