Europe bans Thai chicken imports

SUPERMARKETS and restaurants faced a new health alert today, this time over imported chicken.

EU agriculture chiefs banned all poultry imports from Thailand after two boys were confirmed as having deadly bird flu, and later a man suspected to have the virus died. The illness has claimed five lives in Vietman and infected millions of chickens in South Korea and Japan.

About 50,000 tonnes of frozen Thai chicken is exported to Britain every year and the ban will affect millions of products on shop shelves.

The Thai meat is used in ready meals and by fast food chains such as Kentucky Fried Chicken and Chinese takeaways. None is sold as fresh meat in butchers or supermarkets. However, scientists said the virus could be caught only through direct contact with infected birds, either while they are still alive or immediately after slaughter.

The most common route for infection was through contact with chicken faeces. Once the chickens have been processed, frozen and cooked, there is no risk to humans consuming the meat.

The Food Standards Agency said: 'This is not a food safety issue, there is no evidence of any risk from eating chicken.'

Many shops are still reeling from the crisis over farmed salmon, which has led to plummeting sales of farmed fish, and are desperate to stave off another consumer boycott.

But officials in Brussels insisted the ban was necessary to prevent bird flu entering the EU. A spokeswoman for the National Consumers Council said that the public was bound to be alarmed.

She added that consumers were increasingly sceptical about reassurances about food safety. 'Everything you eat comes with a risk because of the way it is processed to make it acceptable to people.'

The two infected boys, aged six and seven, both live near poultry farms. As agriculture chiefs in Thailand announced a mass slaughter of birds, Hong Kong and Japan also suspended imports.

An outbreak was confirmed today among chickens in Cambodia, and experts fear the virus could rapidly become an international crisis of the same scale as Sars.

KFC UK said it used 'small amounts' of Thai chicken, but was awaiting tests before deciding on sourcing elsewhere.