Paris | Reuters — Poland has reported several outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu at poultry farms with flocks totalling nearly 650,000 birds, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said on Monday.
Poland is the European Union’s largest poultry producer.
Five outbreaks, of which four were at fattening turkey farms and one at a chicken broiler farm, were found in the eastern part of the country while another was discovered at a turkey and geese farm in the western part of the country, the OIE said, citing a report from Polish authorities.
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Bird flu, most often carried from one country to the other by migrating wild birds, has been spreading rapidly in Europe, raising concern in the poultry industry after previous outbreaks led to the culling of tens of millions of birds and international trade restrictions.
The French government on Friday put the entire country on high alert for bird flu, extending a requirement to keep all poultry flocks indoors.
This comes after Dutch authorities last month also ordered commercial farms to keep all flocks inside after bird flu was reported on a farm.
Meanwhile, in Britain, an outbreak of high-path H5 bird flu was reported at a small poultry unit in central England on Monday.
All birds on the infected premises, near Alcester in Warwickshire, are to be culled, the British farm ministry said.
Britain last week declared a nationwide avian influenza prevention zone, ordering farms and bird keepers to toughen biosecurity measures.
High-path and low-path strains of H5 and H7 avian flu are all considered “notifiable” in Canada, meaning all cases must be reported to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and are subject to control measures.
Canada has been considered free of notifiable avian flu since late 2016, following a low-path H5N2 outbreak that summer on a commercial duck operation in Ontario.
The country’s last outbreaks of high-path avian flu in commercial poultry — also H5N2 strains — were in 2014 in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley and in 2015 in southwestern Ontario.
— Reporting for Reuters by Sybille de La Hamaide in Paris and Nigel Hunt in London. Includes files from Glacier FarmMedia Network staff.
