Health authorities in Europe confirmed that the continent is suffering from the largest outbreak of avian influenza in its history for more than a year, as about 50 million birds were slaughtered on contaminated farms, according to the Spanish newspaper "La Pangordia".

According to a report issued by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the reference laboratory of the European Union, between October 2021 and September 2022, "Europe was affected by the outbreak of the most serious avian influenza."

The report indicated that 37 European countries were affected, with more than 2,500 outbreaks discovered across the continent.

And the health agency indicated that the losses of chickens, ducks or turkeys in the affected farms are the highest recorded, as the balance of 50 million slaughtered birds does not include the preventive operations that are eventually conducted about the recorded outbreaks.

The report confirmed that the epidemic has not receded since September, and infections increased with the approach of winter, as the FRA stressed that “for the first time” there was no separation between two epidemic waves because the virus did not disappear in the summer.

The report indicated that this fall, the epidemic was more deadly than last year at the same time, as 35% of farms were infected, and between September 10 and December 2, 2022, nearly 400 outbreaks were reported on farms in 18 European countries. At the fore are France, the United Kingdom and Hungary.

At the request of the European Commission, the FRA said it was studying "the availability of vaccines" to prevent highly pathogenic avian influenza in birds, and "studying possible vaccination strategies".

Source: The Seventh Day website