EU approves UK controls to stop bird flu spread

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain's efforts to contain the spread of the lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu won approval from the European Commission on Tuesday, confirming restrictions on poultry movement and setting up a series of high-risk zones.

British authorities had already set up a protection zone with a radius of 3 km (2 miles) and a surveillance zone of 10 km (4 miles) around the affected site in eastern England where officials began slaughtering thousands of turkeys on Tuesday.

"In the restricted zone, all domestic birds must be kept indoors, and all gatherings of poultry and other captive birds are prohibited in England," the Commission said in a statement.

"Poultry cannot be moved (except directly to the slaughterhouse) and meat cannot be dispatched from the zone unless very stringent conditions are met."

(Reporting by Jeremy Smith, editing by Paul Taylor)