The poultry virus bird flu has been confirmed on a battery egg farm in Criel, north east of Amsterdam, the farm ministry confirmed on Friday.

All 69,000 hens on the farm will be destroyed and the birds on three neighbouring farms checked for signs of infection. The transport of poultry within a 3km radius of the farm has been banned.
It is not yet clear whether the Criel outbreak is a mild or aggressive variant of the disease.
The last serious outbreak of bird flu in the Netherlands was in 2003.