The £500,000 initiative has identified 60,000 people who work with flocks, on egg or chicken farms as well as those who slaughter birds, or clean or handle dead birds in the meat production industry.

The move is designed to reduce the risk of a human suffering from winter flu coming into contact with a bird with H5N1 avian flu.

These are the circumstances in which the feared mutation of the bird flu virus could occur making it transferable from human to human.

The Department of Health said that if a poultry worker caught both human and bird flu at the same time there was "a very slight risk" that the two viruses could mix in their body to create a new and potentially serious flu virus.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk