Europe has been experiencing the “most devastating” avian influenza epidemic ever seen on its soil for more than a year, health authorities said on Tuesday 20 December, with around 50 million birds slaughtered on farms infected by the virus.
Between October 2021 and September 2022, 37 European countries were affected by avian influenza and nearly 2,500 outbreaks were detected on farms across the continent, according to a report by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the European Union Reference Laboratory.
The number of chickens, ducks and turkeys lost on farms is actually higher, as this figure of 50 million birds euthanised does not include the preventive culling that may have been carried out around the outbreaks. The epidemic has not abated since September, and infections are even increasing as winter approaches.
EFSA points out that, “for the first time”, there was no marked separation between two waves of the epidemic, as the virus did not disappear during the summer. And this autumn, the epidemic has already proved more virulent than at the same time last year, with 35% more farms infected.
Between 10 September and 2 December 2022, nearly 400 outbreaks were reported in farms in 18 European countries, with the highest number in France, the United Kingdom and Hungary. The virus has also been detected more than 600 times in wild birds, which the report suggests may have helped spread the virus to farms.
At the request of the European Commission, EFSA is “assessing the availability of vaccines against HPAI for poultry and considering possible vaccination strategies”. The results of this work will be known in the second half of 2023 (see EUROPE 12959/17).
In France, an action plan to make poultry vaccination operational is being finalised.
Link to the scientific report: https://aeur.eu/f/4qw (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)