Even at this very late stage of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) season in Europe, outbreaks associated with the H5N1 HPAI virus continue to be reported in both backyard and commercial poultry flocks.
Geographically centered around the English Channel and North Sea coast, the surge has led to new cases being reported in commercial herds in south-west England, the Channel Islands, France, the Netherlands and north-west Germany. These may be related to the seabird’s ongoing infection during his extended HPAI season in Europe now.
As of 20 August, 1,798 outbreaks of his HPAI have been registered across Europe so far this year. It is based on the latest updates of the European Commission (EC) Animal Disease Information System. The total represents an increase of 21 outbreaks since the version released on July 29th.
To date, 20 European countries have had one or more outbreaks since the beginning of 2022. For comparison, this season’s numbers exceed the total of 1,756 outbreaks registered with the EC by 24 European states in 2021.
France was the country that reported the most cases to her EU this year (1,350). Followed by Hungary (205th), Netherlands (49th), Germany (39th) and Poland (35th). An outbreak of HPAI in Albanian poultry was recorded for the first time since March. That brings the national total for the year to six.
In the past 14 days, 10 countries on the continent, from Portugal to Russia, have officially registered new outbreaks in poultry with the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH).
The H5N1 subtype was identified as the causative virus serotype.
Five countries have recorded additional outbreaks on commercial farms
Based on her WOAH notifications since 9 August, France reported to her WOAH the highest number of new cases of her HPAI in poultry. Between 16th and 22nd August two commercial herds were affected in the north-west region of Brittany. In the same sector, 3,500 and he 43,000 unspecified poultry were affected.
This brings the total number of outbreaks in France in poultry to 1,380 since the start of winter 2021-2022. About 15.77 million commercial birds were directly affected.
In the last 4 weeks, there has been a new surge of his HPAI outbreaks in commercial herds in Lower Saxony, northwestern Germany. So far, WOAH has confirmed six outbreaks involving more than 291,000 birds. Recently, three companies have officially registered.
This brings the number of outbreaks in the Netherlands to 58 since October 2021, affecting almost 3.3 million poultry.
From late July until early August, his HPAI virus was detected in four of his other poultry flocks in the UK. These were all located in South West County Devon, and the other two included two flocks of commercial ducks and hobby/backyard birds. In addition, HPAI has been recorded in his two small flocks of non-commercial birds in the Royal Dependencies of the Channel Islands.
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Source: Watt Poultry
