November 7, 2024

More rapid spread of bird flu in EU compared to last year

Bird flu has been spreading faster in the European Union this season than a milder 2023, raising concerns of a repeat of previous crises that led to the deaths of tens of millions of poultry and renewing fears that it could expand to humans.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has not been detected in humans or in cattle in the EU, unlike the United States where the virus has spread to nearly 400 dairy herds in 14 US states this year, and has been detected in 36 people since April.

Between the start of the migratory season on August 1 and the end of the week of October 21-27, EU countries had reported a total of 62 outbreaks of bird flu on poultry farms, mostly in the east of the bloc, World Organisation for Animal Health data showed.

That compares to seven bird flu outbreaks reported on EU farms by the same stage in 2023, but was still well below the 112 outbreaks reported by late October 2022.

"The situation at EU level is surely more worrying than it was at the same stage last year," said Yann Nedelec, director of French interprofessional poultry group Anvol.

Like last season, Hungary recorded by far the largest number of outbreaks since the start of the season on August 1, with the number rising fast in the past weeks, data showed.

In Poland, the EU's largest poultry producer, the virus led to the culling of 1.8 million birds, of which nearly 1.4 million were on just one farm in the town of Sroda Wielkopolska.

France, which had suffered the most severe losses in 2022/23 but had been mostly spared last season, reinforced biosecurity measures around poultry farms in mid-October, citing a rise in the number of bird flu cases in several neighbouring countries.

- Reuters