Government vets said on Tuesday that tests had shown a 99.96 per cent similarity between the virus strain found at Bernard Matthews farm in Suffolk and the one from a recent Hungarian outbreak.

Defra Ministers had originally played down the likelihood of infected meat imports and said wild birds were the most likely source of the infection.

But officials from the Veterinary Laboratory Agency said this week they believed the virus had ‘most likely’ been transmitted through infected poultry.

The NFU said it was evident that UK farmers were once again suffering as a result of inadequate restrictions on imported meat.

“We resent the continued importation of diseases into this country,” said NFU poultry board chairman Charles Bournes.

“If Defra wants disease cost sharing then it’s going to have to do more to protect us.”

He said a bigger surveillance zone around the Hungary outbreak could have prevented infected poultry being exported to the UK.

Source: Farmers Guardian