The European Commission will hold an emergency meeting on Monday after the detection of a highly contagious strain of Bird Flu on a poultry farm in the Netherlands.  It’s the first time the H5N8 strain has been detected in Europe, and authorities are already in the process of destroying 150,000 hens at the infected farm.

The Dutch government also banned poultry and egg transport for a few days.  They say people can catch H5N8 if they are in close proximity to infected birds.  A previous outbreak in South Korea saw millions of farm birds culled to prevent its spread to people.

“This highly pathogenic variant of avian influenza is very dangerous for bird life,” according to a statement issued by the Dutch government.  “The disease can be transmitted from animals to humans.”

Meanwhile in England, authorities are culling ducks at a breeding farm in East Yorkshire after officials confirmed an apparently separate outbreak.  The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is still working on identifying the strain – The English outbreak comes from the H5 family of viruses, but the potentially deadly H5N1 strain has been ruled out.