Europe is experiencing ‘the most devastating’ bird flu in its history

Fifty million poultry slaughtered… Europe has been experiencing the avian flu epidemic for more than a year “most devastating” never observed on its soil, according to health authorities.

Between October 2021 and September 2022, “Europe has been hit by the most devastating outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)” of its history, with 37 European countries affected, and more than 2,500 outbreaks detected in farms on the continent, can we read in a report European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and European Union Reference Laboratory.

The losses in chicken, duck or turkey farms are, in reality, greater, because this assessment of 50 million euthanized birds does not include the preventive slaughter carried out around the outbreaks, said the health agency to Agence France-Presse. The epidemic has not abated since September and contamination is doubling even as winter approaches.

EFSA stresses that, ” for the first time “, there was no marked separation between two epidemic waves, the disease not having receded during the summer. This autumn, it has already been more virulent than last year at the same time, with a 35% higher number of infected farms.

Between September 10 and December 2, 2022, nearly 400 outbreaks were recorded in farms in 18 European countries, France, the United Kingdom and Hungary in the lead. The virus has also been detected more than 600 times in wild birds, especially aquatic birds (ducks, swans), which could, according to this report, have contributed to the spread of the virus.

Following a request from the European Commission, EFSA “is currently evaluating the availability of HPAI vaccines for poultry, and examining possible vaccination strategies”. The results of this work, eagerly awaited by breeders, will be known in the second half of 2023.