German and Belgian authorities today ordered thousands of chickens slaughtered to try to stop an outbreak of avian flu.
Since March, some 26 million birds in the Netherlands and 2.5 million in Belgium have been killed to stop the spread of the disease after it first hit Dutch farms in February.
Exports of poultry and eggs from the two countries were also banned by the European Union.
Germany's first case was reported yesterday in Schwalmtal in North Rhine-westphalia, bordering Belgium and the Netherlands.
Belgium ordered the slaughter of all birds at eight farms today. Its health body said none of the farms had shown signs of avian flu but precautionary measures were taken because they had received food from a lorry that had serviced Schwalmtal.
German authorities also ordered the slaughter of thousands more birds on farms which had bought stocks from a farm which reported the country's first suspected case of bird flu.
A spokeswoman for the regional environment ministry in Duesseldorf said 2,000 birds were ordered slaughtered as a precautionary measure on a farm near the town of Willich, not far from the Dutch and Belgium borders.
North Rhine-Westphalia's consumer protection minister Baerbel Hoehn said on Friday she assumed tests would confirm the outbreak of bird flu in Germany and her state had imposed a 72-hour ban on movement of poultry and eggs.