Bird flu outbreak shows upward trend in the UK

The number of bird flu incidents in the UK has been climbing recently. Is it possible that the problem originates with the hens in the backyard?

Bird flu incidences rapidly increased by fivefold last year and created an urgent need for research into stopping the disease transmission, as per the chief of a new consortium examining the virus. The threat to humans from the disease, which is spread by wild birds, is low; however, a record level of epidemics this year has scientists worried.

The previous record of 26 infections involving H5N1 in 2021 has been shattered, with 121 incidences including the H5 serotype this year, as per Prof. Ian Brown, chief of virology at the govt's Animal and Plant Health Agency (Apha).

Brown speculated that the reason for this trend was the increased number of people who kept chickens or ducks as pets. Due to the very low number of birds involved, many of these keepers are exempted from the requirement that they register with any particular authority.

Brown stated that a large majority of the cases are in those types of settings. They can be found in large industrial farms, downward to somebody who keeps two hens in their backyard. As a result, this represents a significant change in terms of the potential threats to food security, public health, animal welfare, and poultry exports.

After the epidemics that occurred in the previous year created panic and hardship among poultry producers, as well as the first incidence of bird flu infecting a human person in the UK, the Ministry for Environment, Agriculture and Rural Development (Defra) moved with breakneck speed to establish the APHA collaboration.

Brown stated that although the United Kingdom (UK) has experienced multiple cases of avian flu over the past ten years, the occurrence of these cases has been steadily rising. "Instead of getting once every three or four years, we appear to be getting it every year, and they're on a larger scale."

While the danger to people has not increased much, there has been no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus in the last twenty years since the first incidence of the avian flu was reported.

However, the COVID epidemic has brought to light the dangers that may be posed by other potential zoonotic illnesses. These are diseases that can be passed from animals to people. "The more individuals are in direct contact with birds in an unprotected manner, the greater the probable risk that folks can get infection," said Brown, who added that the United Kingdom has "very good surveillance" of viruses. "Theoretically, the risk that people can get infected is higher when they have unchecked contact with birds." "If we are successful in lowering the burden that is carried by birds, this will also have a positive impact on our ability to lower the risk that is posed to human beings."

The bird flu can transfer from wild birds to domesticated birds, and experts are currently analysing data collected over the winter to determine which farming techniques make farms less susceptible to infection because the government issued an order that all birds must be kept indoors when the outbreak began during the previous winter, which is more commonly referred to in the agricultural industry as "housing" than as a lockdown. Due to this, consumers in Britain were unable to purchase free-range eggs for a period of five weeks.

Brown explained that the virus spreads from bird to bird by intimate contact, calling it "droplet transmission" and comparing it to the Covid virus. Other forms of vectors include bird faeces and nasal secretions, also known as snot. It's possible that wild birds spread disease through their faeces when they fly over agricultural lands and leave their waste there. Even if the temperature is kept at 4 degrees Celsius, the virus is able to maintain its infectious state for approximately eight weeks, he explained.

Research is also being done to figure out what causes wild birds to become ill, as this may be an extremely traumatic experience for the birds and is sometimes fatal. There have been deaths of thousands of birds in Scotland, the majority of which were gannets nesting in dense colonies, in addition to gulls and puffins.

"This is a reason for concern due to the fact that some of these species are already endangered and have no immunity to the virus. These birds get very near to one another during summer months when they migrate to their breeding grounds. Therefore, it quickly spreads throughout all of these colonies.

Migration of wild birds is undoubtedly another role, and some of the most significant mixing takes place in central Asian countries like Kazakhstan, along an avian equivalent of the Silk Road.

During summer, the virus is expected to be eradicated from Europe, but this did not occur in the previous year. In addition to that, it was the first time it had ever arrived in North America. Since few birds go over the Atlantic, it is likely that viruses were passed on by birds spending the summer in the Arctic. This raises questions as to whether the changing climate in the far north is also affecting the transmission of the disease.