Alert against bird flu in Europe; millions of chickens were killed

DUBLIN: Warning against bird flu in Europe. The outbreak of avian influenza, a contagious and deadly disease, is spreading rapidly in Europe. The poultry industry has been warned, keeping in mind previous outbreaks that have resulted in the slaughter of tens of millions of birds and significant economic losses.

The virus that has been identified in Europe this year is H5N8. It was most prevalent in poultry and wild birds in 2016/17. H5N5 and H5N1 have also been reported. The European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) says the risk to humans is generally low. However, the evolution of the virus needs to be closely monitored. A strain of H5N1 has been known to spread to humans.

The disease has been found in France, the Netherlands, Germany, Britain, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, and Sweden and for the first time this week in Croatia, Slovenia and Poland. It also wreaked havoc in Russia, Kazakhstan and Israel.

Although most cases are in migrating wild birds, outbreaks of the disease have also been reported on farms. At least 1.6 million chickens and ducks have been killed so far in the region. The virus killed more than 500,000 chickens this autumn in the Netherlands, Europe’s largest poultry and egg exporter. In Poland alone, 900,000 chickens died this week, according to the ministry.

The risk of bird flu has been found in some wild birds found in Limerick, Ireland.

A spokeswoman for the Friedrich-Loeffler Institute, Germany’s federal animal disease research agency said: “The risk of a transfer in poultry farms and more cases among wild birds is higher than in the past two years because of the massive appearance of various bird flu viruses in Europe.”

By the end of October, the number of infected chickens in Russia had reached 1.8 million. The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) estimates that 1.6 million chickens died on a single farm near Kazakhstan.

The EU poultry industry has expressed concern over the latest outbreak of the disease. Meanwhile, the TASS news agency has reported that China has stopped importing poultry products from four regions of Russia due to bird flu.