Czech authorities ordered a cull of thousands of chickens and ducks around outbreaks of bird flu on two small farms in the southeast today, as reports of the disease came in from across Europe. The order came as France started culling about 800,000 ducks in its southwest and Austria told its farmers to keep all poultry indoors following cases reported in its neighbours Switzerland and Germany. The H5N8 bird flu strain is deadly for poultry but has never been found in humans and cannot be transmitted through food.
