Bird flu cases on the rise

According to the latest report https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/7786# from EFSA, the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the reference laboratories of the EU (EURL), while the number of AI virus detections in seabird breeding colonies has decreased since the previous reporting period (June to September 2022), the number of cases in waterfowl and poultry increased.

The increase in the number of outbreaks in poultry is suspected to be linked to the spread of the virus via waterfowl.

50 million birds slaughtered

The ongoing HPAI epidemic is the the largest ever observed in Europe. In the first year of the outbreak, which ran from October 2021 to September 2022, a total of 2,520 outbreaks in poultry, 227 in captive birds and 3,867 detections in wild birds were reported. in 37 European countries. Some 50 million birds were slaughtered on affected farms.

The unusual persistence of HPAI in wild birds and poultry throughout the summer of 2022 means that for the first time there has been no clear separation between the end of the first year of the outbreak and the start of this year’s HPAI season, which kicked off in October 2022.

Vaccination strategies

EFSA is currently assessing the availability of highly pathogenic avian influenza vaccines and considering potential vaccination strategies. The results of this work should be available in the second half of 2023.