Authorities continue to emphasize that the risk of an Avian pandemic is low, Dutch farmers have been ordered to keep poultry locked up inside, British doctors have been briefed on a nightmare scenario of a human pandemic and France is stockpiling drugs to protect its population.
The risk of avian influenza being brought into the country through bird fairs is far greater than from migratory water foul coming into the continent, according to the report.
Neil Forbes, one of the UK's leading bird vets, told the BBC, "These places are a cauldron of infection."
The H5N1 strain of bird (or avian) flu, has killed more than 50 people in Asia, led to the destruction of millions of birds, and has now started to spread west.
"The nightmare scenario is you could import a bird from the Far East that carries this virus, that brings it into an auction hall and spreads it to a number of others," Forbes added.
"That then distributes it across the UK and we then end up slaughtering every chicken in the UK."
