Wattagnet: Avian influenza hits Italy turkeys, egg layers

Highly pathogenic avian influenza continues to affect Europe, with France hit the hardest

Europe continues to be plagued by outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), with Italy as the latest country affected.

Veterinary authorities in Italy have reported to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) the country’s first outbreaks of HPAI caused by the H5N8 virus. Three farms – two with fattening turkeys and one with a layer flock – in the region of Veneto in the north-east of the country are affected, and more than 80,000 birds have died or will be destroyed to prevent further spread of the virus.

France hit hardest by avian flu
The European country worst affected by HPAI continues to be France. On January 25, the ministry of agriculture, put the total number of confirmed HPAI outbreaks in commercial poultry flocks caused by the H5N8 virus at 172, 27 more than one week ago. There had also been four more cases in wild birds, bringing the total to 12. A total of 1.8 million poultry have been slaughtered.

In a statement, the minister of agriculture, Stéphane Le Foll, stressed that the latest outbreaks starting in December of 2016 are caused by a virus that is different from the one affecting the country’s poultry sector in the south-west of the country previously in that is highly contagious among palmipeds (web-footed birds). This requires a different approach to disease control, he said, requiring preventive slaughter to be carried out in areas of multiple outbreaks, and restrictions on movements in the departments of Landes and Pyrénées Atlantiques in order to avoid spreading the virus to areas with high bird density.

In its latest report to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the French ministry of agriculture reported 30 new outbreaks of HPAI, affecting almost 166,000 domestic chickens and waterfowl in the departments of Landes, Hautes Pyrénées and Gers. Also affected are a number of flocks of hens ranging in size up to 19,200 birds. Of the 30 new outbreaks, the number of birds affected is only given in 19 cases.

Germany reports 13 more H5N8 cases
Germany has reported to OIE a further 13 new outbreaks of HPAI caused by an H5N8 virus, including three farms in Lower Saxony and one in Brandenburg. Almost 48,000 fattening ducks, breeding geese and turkey breeders have been lost to the disease.

U.K. avian flu situation
In the UK, 10,000 breeding pheasants have tested positive for the H5N8 virus at a farm at Wyre in Lancashire, according to a report by the agriculture ministry (Defra) to the OIE. Defra has since reported a new outbreak in a flock of 19,500 fattening turkeys near Boston in Lincolnshire. Restrictions are now in place around five outbreak sites in England & Wales, but have been lifted around one location of earlier cases.

Non-commercial birds affected
According to OIE, the same virus has been confirmed in small backyard flocks in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Over the past week, wild/zoo birds have also tested positive for the H5N8 HPAI virus in Italy, Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, Croatia, Slovenia, Ireland, Slovakia, Finland, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine.

In addition to the recent H5N8 outbreaks, Germany has confirmed to the OIE over the last week that an H5N5 highly pathogenic virus has been detected in a wild goose in the north of the country, and a low-pathogenic form of the H5N3 family in three backyard flocks in North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt and Rhineland-Palatine.