France has confirmed the deadly bird flu virus H5N1 has been found on a turkey farm in the east of the country. It is the first time a European Union farm has been infected. France has already had cases in two wild ducks. About 80% of more than 11,000 birds at the farm have died in the past week, and the rest have been culled. Despite assurances that cooked poultry is safe, sales in France have fallen by 30%, and Japan has announced an import ban with immediate effect. France, Europe’s largest poultry producer, is to start vaccinating millions of birds against bird flu to try to protect its 7bn euros ($6bn) a year poultry industry. Poultry sales fall “The H5N1 virus is confirmed as the cause of the death of turkey farmed in the Ain department,” the ministry said in a statement. This is the confirmation that the whole of the French poultry industry feared, says the BBC’s Daniel Sandford in Lyon. The farm in Versailleux, where so many turkeys fell ill on Thursday, lay just 200 metres (yards) from the lake where the first case of bird flu among wild […]