THE HAGUE, 07/03/03 - Caretaker Agriculture Minister Veerman fears that a second type of fowl pest may be affecting the Netherlands. The suspected new variant is less aggressive than the highly contagious H7N7 virus.

H7N7 was discovered last weekend at several poultry farms in the Barneveld area. Initially, an outbreak of the virus was also assumed at a poultry farm in Laren, 60 kilometers to the east, but to the farmer's amazement a blood test showed that it was not hit by the plague after all. However, Veerman now believes a less aggressive virus is active in Laren and perhaps also in other places.

Veerman wants to carry out a national examination of poultry in order to show where the two varieties have arisen. This means that current nationwide measures, such as a limited transportation of chickens, will remain in effect for longer, he told the Lower House yesterday.

The number of poultry farms affected by the fowl pest has now risen to 25, although only eight cases have been officially confirmed after tests. Since yesterday, the slaughtering capacity has increased to 250,000 chickens a day due to the arrival of extra electrocution and gassing equipment from abroad. It is expected that all contaminated farms will have been cleared by today. Preventive destruction will then begin at several dozens of surrounding poultry farms not hit by the disease.

Veerman won the support of the Lower House in a parliamentary debate yesterday for his tackling of the fowl pest crisis. He could have intervened more quickly, but in the main lines, he acted properly, was the conclusion. Only the conservatives (VVD) and Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) parties considered that the minister should have designated an area with a radius of 3 kilometers in which unaffected farms were cleared as a precaution, instead of 1 kilometer.

Fourteen countries have meanwhile banned the import of Dutch poultry products. In doing so, they are exceeding the ban on the export of only live chickens and hatching eggs from the Netherlands that the EU employs. The countries concerned are Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Malaysia, Poland, Rumania, Russia, Singapore, Slovenia, Taiwan and the Czech Republic. According to an agriculture ministry spokeswoman, it is as yet impossible to assess the loss in turnover.

The outbreak of fowl pest is the first in the Netherlands since 1926. The virus type H7N7 last cropped up in Australia in 1985 after earlier occurrences in Germany and England (1979).