Health workers meet outside a farm near Nafferton, East Yorkshire, England, where a strain of bird flu has been confirmed Monday. Health officials said they will cull 6,000 ducks and have imposed a 10-kilometer exclusion zone to contain the spread, although any risk to public health is said to be very low. Photo: CFP

 Dutch officials were on Monday checking poultry farms for a highly infectious strain of bird flu following an outbreak in a central village of the virus which could infect humans.

Officials have identified the flu as ­being the H5N8 strain, previously ­detected only in Asia, but which was identified on a German farm in November.

Public health authorities on ­Sunday banned the transport of ­poultry ­nationwide after the ­discovery in ­Hekendorp village of a "highly ­pathogenic" form of avian influenza that is very dangerous to birds and can ­contaminate humans.

A duck breeding farm in northern England was closed off on Monday ­after an outbreak of bird flu, although ­officials said the risk to public health was "very low."

An estimated 6,000 ducks on the farm will be culled and a 10-kilometer restriction zone has been put around the site near Driffield in Yorkshire.

Renowned virologist and bird flu ­expert Ron Fouchier of Erasmus ­Medical Center in Rotterdam told AFP it was a mystery how the virus had reached the Netherlands.

"We have no idea where it's coming from," he said, noting that the flu had "popped up, out of nowhere, in farms without any poultry trade record with Asia."

Fouchier said that infection likely came through wild waterbirds, such as ducks, geese or swans, that had ­migrated from Asia and left droppings near the Dutch farm.

Hekendorp resident Aad van de Sande told AFP that the village remained calm in spite of the media attention.

"Some residents are worried, but we won't panic, because that's not what we do," said the white-bearded pensioner as he cycled through the village.

Several hundred thousand birds, mainly ducks, have been culled over the last two months because of a South ­Korean outbreak.

Avian influenza is fatal for chickens, and poses a health threat to humans, who can fall sick after handling infected poultry.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed more than 400 people, mainly in Southeast Asia, since first appearing in 2003. Another strain of bird flu, H7N9, has claimed more than 170 lives since emerging in 2013.

According to Dutch media, the H7N7 strain of avian flu severely hit the ­Netherlands in 2003 with health ­authorities destroying some 30 million birds in an effort to quash an outbreak.

The European Commission said Monday the response to an outbreak of avian flu in the Netherlands and Britain was satisfactory amid warnings that the disease could spread further.

It will make a formal decision on the measures taken in the afternoon ­on Thursday and review the situation on November 27.