Dutch cull 25,000 hens to contain bird flu

AMSTERDAM - Dutch health authorities have culled around 25,000 hens on a farm in the south of the country after the detection of a highly infectious strain of bird flu, the government said on Thursday.

The farm is in the town of Neerkant, 30 km southeast of Eindhoven. A transport ban has been imposed on 83 additional nearby farms, the government said in a statement.

More than a dozen cases of the form of avian flu have been reported in the Netherlands in the past month, following dozens of cases earlier in the year.

France has also seen a resurgence in cases after experiencing its worst-ever bird flu wave earlier this year.