PARIS
\nAn unusually early outbreak of bird flu cases affecting high numbers of wild birds and poultry farms across Europe and North America is raising concerns of a repeat of previous crises that led to mass culling and food price spikes.
\nThe highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has led to the culling of hundreds of millions of farmed birds in the past few years, disrupting food supplies and driving up prices. Human infections remain rare.
\nWhile outbreaks typically spike in the northern hemisphere autumn as migratory birds fly south, they appeared earlier and in greater numbers in Europe and the US, affecting both wild birds and poultry.
\nMore outbreaks than previous seasons
\nIn the US, 107 outbreaks were reported by November 18, nearly four times last year\u2019s total. Minnesota, the country\u2019s largest turkey producing state, confirmed its first case two months earlier than in 2022.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s certainly more than we\u2019ve seen over the last few winter-fall migratory bird seasons,\u201d said Tim Boring, director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Michigan, another large turkey state.
\n\u201cI think it\u2019s part of this ongoing pattern… we\u2019re still well within this current outbreak that\u2019s lasted several years now,\u201d he said.
\nThe US has already culled about 8 million birds since September, a slight increase from last year, government data showed.
\nCanada, which has a smaller poultry flock than the US, has also culled nearly 8 million birds. Canadian Agriculture Minister Heath MacDonald said the bird flu situation was getting \u201cvery worrisome.\u201d
\n\u201cWild birds seem to be carrying more of this disease. So it\u2019s scary in some ways,\u201d he told Reuters.
\nThe World Organization for Animal Health said the early outbreaks were concerning but not alarming.
\n\u201cThere should not be a public health alarm. An increase in number of cases could have different explanations. What we need to observe is the actual virus itself,\u201d said Gregorio Torres, head of WOAH\u2019s scientific department.
\nDifferent wild birds affected
\nIn Europe, the situation was also more severe than last year, with Germany recording the highest number of outbreaks in three years.
\nBetween early September and mid-November, 1,443 cases of bird flu were detected in wild birds in 26 European countries \u2014 a fourfold increase compared with the same period in 2024 and the highest since 2016, the European food safety agency EFSA said.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s new this season? It\u2019s not exactly the same birds that are being affected. This time, we\u2019ve seen contamination occur earlier among wild birds, and now we\u2019re starting to detect cases that are spreading to farmed birds,\u201d French health security agency ANSES Deputy Director General Gilles Salvat told reporters on Thursday.
\nSalvat pointed to common cranes \u2014 which typically migrate earlier than waterfowl species such as ducks, geese and swans \u2014 as a major factor behind the outbreak, which spread from northeast to southwest Europe, with high fatalities in Germany and France.
\nFrance put its poultry sector on high alertin October, much earlier than in previous years.
\nThe situation was more normal in most of Asia except for Cambodia, which has seen severe bird flu outbreaks, while Japan reported its first case on October 22 \u2014 five days later than last year. About 1.65 million birds have been culled so far in Japan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PARIS An unusually early outbreak of bird flu cases affecting high numbers of wild birds and poultry farms across Europe and North America is raising concerns of a repeat of previous crises that led to mass culling and food price spikes. The highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has led to the culling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517354,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-517325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n