THE open skies of East Anglia are a long way removed from the steamy tropical air of south east Asia. Yesterday, however, the deadly flu virus which first emerged thousands of miles away to the east found its way to British shores.
In the sprawling village of Holton, situated in the rolling north Suffolk countryside, attention was centring on the 22 turkey houses on the Bernard Matthews farm, 2km from the village. A few locals work at the factory but it is staffed mainly by imm
igrant workers from Eastern Europe.
There was widespread shock among villagers at finding themselves at the centre of a national drama, and growing confusion about the implications of the news.
Holton resident Marilyn Hatcher, 53, said: "It is frightening for this to have happened on our doorstep. Local people will be asking questions. They will want to know how it got there and what is being done about it.
"The government should be putting leaflets through everyone's letterboxes. We want to know what guidelines we should follow and what the risks are.
"If exclusion zones are set up will we be confined to the village? What about our jobs?"
Another resident wanted to know why the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) did not inform them sooner - and wasn't informed earlier itself.
Lillian Foreman, 43, said: "I am worried for people who work at the factory. What will happen to them? If turkeys started dying on the Tuesday why weren't Defra notified then? I think they should have been notified sooner."
It took until Thursday last week for the alarm to be raised when workers in one of the turkey houses noticed what was described as "significant mortality" among some of the farm's flock.
Defra was immediately notified. The dead birds were taken to Defra's laboratory in Weybridge, Surrey. In Suffolk, the factory was immediately thrown under a blanket of tight security with no birds allowed in or out.
By Friday, 1,000 turkeys had died. That evening, Defra confirmed that the dead birds had died of the H5 strain of bird flu, but said further tests would be needed to see if it was the H5N1 variant. Yesterday, the news the people of Suffolk had been dreading came through, and H5N1 was confirmed.
As with last year's case, when bird flu was discovered in a dead swan on a beach in the Fife village of Cellardyke, government scientists had been expecting it. A long-prepared emergency plan immediately swung into action.
At the factory, the culling of all 159,000 turkeys on the site began. Scientists insist that only by the quick extermination of all nearby birds can the highly infectious disease be stamped out. A cordon was thrown up around the site, restricting all access. Visitors were all disinfected to ensure the virus was locked in.
Around the farm, a 3km protection zone was thrown up. All homes or farms with poultry were ordered to keep their flocks indoors. All face testing over the coming days to see whether they have caught the virus.
And around that, a 10km surveillance zone was put in place. Within this area, until further notice, all poultry are barred from being moved. A nearby wetland area, home to hundreds of wild birds, will be put under increased surveillance.
Last night, further restrictions were introduced on a much wider area covering more than 2,000 square kilometres, in which poultry must be kept isolated from wild birds and flock movements will require a licence.
With the net thrown out, scientist will be hoping that - as with every other case in Europe where an outbreak has been found - the virus can be contained. But that will not stop fears that experts are powerless to prevent its continuing spread across the world, and its eventual mutation into a human-borne disease.
Central to the next few days will be the hunt to find how the disease came to take hold at the farm. Avian flu expert Dr Colin Butter, from the Institute of Animal Health, said it would be crucial to discover whether the farm was the "reference" case - in other words, the first place the strain emerged.
If it was, the most likely source would therefore be from a wild bird which had found its way into the farm's closed houses.
Experts are talking down the likelihood of infection from a migratory bird, pointing out that the main migration period of birds likely to be carrying the virus is now over.
More worrying is the possibility that the infection could have come from an indigenous wild bird, suggesting the virus may have taken hold in Britain's own flocks. The other possibility that must be explored is whether the birds came to the farm already diseased.
Vets yesterday revealed that the birds had not been moved out of the farm since being brought there from a hatchery. But there was no word on whether it would have been possible for the birds to have caught the virus at the hatchery itself. Such a scenario would add further concerns that hundreds of other birds emanating from the hatchery may also be carrying the virus.
In the short term, however, government officials were yesterday worrying mostly about the potential for panic among the public over the virus.
They stressed it was still perfectly safe to eat all poultry products and that it remains hugely difficult for the disease to spread from birds to humans.
So far, the World Health Organisation says that a total of 164 people have died from bird flu - a further case emerged yesterday in Nigeria - all of whom had close contact with birds infected by the virus. Where tighter hygiene restrictions on the handling of bird flu exists, it does not seem easily spread to humans.
But microbiologists are warning that the mutation of the virus into one which can spread more easily is "overdue".
Every so often, perhaps three times every 100 years, a flu virus in animals will mutate so that it becomes easily transmitted to and between humans.
It was this that caused the deadly Spanish flu outbreak in 1918. It happened again in 1957 and 1968.
The 1918 flu bug is still seen as the most deadly incarnation of the virus. At its peak, it had a mortality rate of 2%. The rate for H5N1, by contrast, runs at 50%. If or when the virus will ever mutate is still a matter for speculation. But this weekend, the emergency teams surrounding the Suffolk countryside are not waiting to find out.
Warning to Scottish poultry farmers to remain vigilant
THE reverberations of the outbreak of H5N1 in Suffolk were being felt in Scotland last night, as farming leaders said it provided a stark warning for the security of disease control among Scotland's three million farmed poultry birds.
According to the National Farmers' Union Scotland, the poultry industry north of the Border produces 127,000 tonnes of meat and 740 million eggs.
The discovery of the virus in Suffolk has already triggered concern that the huge industry could be affected by plummeting consumer confidence.
Farming leaders said last night that events south of the Border should further concentrate minds about the threat posed by the virus.
James Withers, of the National Farmers' Union, said: "I think all this has done is to serve as another reminder to Scottish poultry producers that they have to remain on guard. But effectively they have been on a state of alert for almost a year now, and this is a reminder that we have to keep disease control security as tight as possible."
He added: "The NFU is speaking to the authorities on a regular basis to see how the situation is developing, but what is happening in Suffolk doesn't have any implication as yet for Scotland."
Officials at the Scottish Executive were also attempting to maintain calm. Ministers were keeping an eye on the developing situation but insisted there were no knock-on effects for the country.
"There are no direct implications for Scotland at this stage," a spokesman said.
He added: "Poultry keepers are reminded of the importance of vigilance for signs of disease and maintaining good bio-security."
However, as a precautionary measure, bird gatherings in Scotland have been cancelled. Pigeon racing across the whole of the UK has also been ruled out until further notice.
Poultry producers have been on alert for well over a year since the bird flu scare began in earnest. All commercial poultry keepers with more than 50 birds, including chickens, pheasants, ducks and geese, were required to register their details in February 2006.
The current outbreak comes 10 months after the first recorded case of H5N1 in Britain occurred in Cellardyke, in Fife.
That prompted the first major bird flu emergency response, when - as with Suffolk - an exclusion zone was thrown up and restrictions placed on the movement of animals.
The measures were widely deemed to have kept confidence high within the industry, with the result that sales in the shops of poultry products did not suffer noticeably.
Government officials and farming leaders south of the Border will now be hoping desperately that the same occurs following the Suffolk outbreak, and that - as in Cellardyke - it proves to be a solitary outbreak.
Scottish Executive figures, last published in 2004, estimate the poultry flock increased by just under 10% to 15.9 million in that year, chiefly as the result of an extra 1.2 million broilers and other table birds.
UK poultry farmers produced 1.6 million tonnes of meat in 2004, second only to France within the EU.
SCOTT MCCULLOCH AND ANNA MILLAR