Reuters reports that the cull and subsequent biosecurity measures effectively halt the country’s poultry exports to markets outside the European Union for at least three months.

The slaughter follows a series of outbreaks of bird flu in Europe in the last few weeks, with wild birds suspected to be spreading the disease.

"So far we only have one infected farm in Sweden, but we don't know how much of the virus we have in wild fauna...so there is of course the risk of another farm getting infected," Katharina Gielen, a department head at the Swedish Board of Agriculture, told Reuters.

The disease, found in the southern Swedish region of Skane, had already killed around 1,400 turkeys on the farm before the cull began on Tuesday 17 November, she said.

Germany said it was considering culling as many as 70,000 chickens after it found the virus at yet another of its farms on Tuesday.

Other cases have been reported in France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Britain.

Swedish authorities are closely monitoring other farms in the area for signs of the virus and have asked the public to report sightings of dead birds in the wild.

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