The UK’s supermarkets are facing a possible recall of all processed turkey products nationwide in an attempt to stop any possible spread of the bird flu .
Professor David King, chief scientist for the British government, warned that other birds or animals could pick up the H5N1 virus if they came into contact with meat produced from infected poultry .
Mr King said that they may be no other choice but to remove all turkey products from the shops in order to halt the disease spreading to other animals .
“I think that is exactly what the Food Standards Agency will be looking at now,” he told Channel 4 News on Friday.
Even though there seems to be no immediate harm to humans from the virus, there is a huge risk of the disease rapidly spreading if the wild bird population became infected, although no cases have been found to date .
Mr King said, “That sort of direct transfer is my biggest worry at the moment because the transfer could occur through, for example, wild animals and wild birds so the real concern now is whether or not the virus is isolated to the birds that have been culled or whether it has moved beyond that.”
“My bigger worry is that it might have got into the wild bird population. We need to keep a very close eye on that,” he added.
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) confirmed through a spokesman that if the virus was discovered in meat products they would take ‘appropriate action’, although he stressed that at this moment in time it was no more than a ‘hypothetical’ possibility.
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