This country imports thousands of fowl every month, especially chickens from the EU and France in particular.

With the outbreak of H5N1 in France, all imports of live fowl into this country must be halted, regardless of the cost to industry.

Our own poultry workers must be vaccinated at once to stop the outbreak at the front line.

Vaccinating their families as well would prevent the spread of this disease in schools and supermarkets and many other gathering places families use.

A precaution such as this could halt a pandemic in its tracks.

It might mean giving these people a booster every year but the end result could speak for itself.

As for the birds, if a vaccine could be found to work by adding it to their water, like the vaccine used in the Fifties and Sixties that was placed on a cube of sugar for our children against Polio, all fowl could be vaccinated en masse, not just here but in all countries.

-M Farrant, Portslade