Dutch order poultry indoors after avian flu outbreak

Dutch health authorities on Tuesday ordered all poultry to be kept indoors to curb an outbreak of highly contagious bird flu.

The decision comes after the H5 strain of bird flu was discovered at a poultry farm in the central Flevoland province, the Dutch agriculture department said.

"About 36,000 birds were also slaughtered on the farm to prevent the virus from spreading," it added in a statement.

The outbreak is the second to hit the Netherlands this year after a similar outbreak in February when a southern turkey farm was infected.

The Netherlands was worst hit in 2003, when a deadly strain of H7N7 avian influenza broke out, killing at least one person and infecting 255 flocks, leading to the culling of 30 million birds according to the National Library of Medicine.