Avian influenza detections in birds have started to decline across Europe following an autumn and winter during which circulation of the virus in waterfowl reached its highest level in five years, EU health officials said in a report on Thursday.
The spread of the highly pathogenic viral disease, commonly called bird flu, is a concern for governments and the poultry industry due to the devastation it can cause to flocks, its impact on food prices and a risk of a new pandemic.
Detections have begun to fall since December, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the EU Reference Laboratory (EURL) said in a quarterly report on the virus.
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Between November 29 and February 27, authorities recorded 406 outbreaks of bird flu in domestic birds in 32 European countries and 2,108 outbreaks in wild birds, they said.
While detections in domestic birds were similar to the same quarter in the past two years, detections in wild birds were still three times higher than last year and almost five times higher than two years ago – a legacy of the unusually intense autumn-winter peak, they said.
Most infections in poultry farms resulted from indirect contact with wild birds, while farm-to-farm spread was rare.
Although bird cases are declining, there has been a slight increase in detections among mammals, they said.
For the first time in the European Union, tests on a healthy dairy cattle herd found evidence of past exposure to bird flu, suggesting a possible spillover from wild birds. Investigations into these cases are ongoing, they said.
