What measures can the public take to minimise their risk from bird flu in the UK?
It remains safe to eat properly cooked poultry meat and products in the European Union, including the UK . WHO has recently reiterated that the H5N1 avian influenza virus is not transmitted to humans through properly prepared and cooked food. Avian influenza is a disease of birds and whilst it can pass very rarely and with difficulty to humans, it requires extremely close and prolonged contact with infected birds for humans to become infected. To date there is no confirmed evidence of sustained human to human transmission of HPAI H5N1 anywhere in the world. The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has not changed its current risk assessment that the direct risk to the health of people in Europe is very low, but not zero. The risk is almost entirely confined to those who have close contact with infected poultry. Poultry keepers in the UK should continue to maintain a close eye on their birds for health problems and maintain good biosecurity measures as set out in th
