An "unprecedented" number of bird flu cases were recorded in Europe this summer. About 47 million birds had to be killed because of this.
The Guardian writes about it.
Poultry farms from the northern Svalbard archipelago to southern Portugal have reported almost 2 500 outbreaks of the disease in the past year. According to the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, thousands of outbreaks among wild birds have been registered in the EU.
In past years, bird flu outbreaks have decreased as the weather warms and wild bird migration stops in the fall and winter. But outbreaks have continued in the UK and elsewhere in Europe this summer, raising fears that highly pathogenic bird flu variants are now contagious to wild birds, posing a year-round risk of infection.
From June to September, the number of outbreaks among domestic birds was more than five times higher than in the same period last year. Experts say that now all types of birds have become infected, as a result of which the virus has remained.
Outbreaks have also crossed the Atlantic Ocean, spreading from Europe to North America along migratory routes and killing millions of domestic birds in the US and Canada.
"As the autumn migration begins and the number of wild birds wintering in Europe increases, they are likely to be at a higher risk of infection than in previous years due to the spread of the virus in Europe," the head of risk assessment at the European Food Safety Authority Guillem de Sez noted.
Year-round infections in the UK and Europe can result in poultry being permanently kept indoors. Veterinary trials of the bird flu vaccine have begun in France and the Netherlands, but there are questions about the effectiveness of bird flu vaccination and whether vaccinated birds can spread the disease if infected.