Are UK poultry farmers facing the highest risk winter yet for avian influenza?

The warning comes from The Pirbright Institute’s head of avian virology, Professor Ian Brown, who said the H5N1 strain of bird flu has become more able to spread, describing it as “almost a super strain”.

Mandatory housing order

It comes as all poultry in England and Northern Ireland have been ordered by the government to be housed inside due to escalating cases. The mandatory housing order came into force on 6 November and covers back yard flocks to commercial farms.

Gary Ford, head of Strategy and Producer Engagement at the British Free Range Egg Producers Association (BFREPA), welcomed the decision taken by the chief veterinary officer and Defra to extend the housing order across England.

“That is the clarity and consistency that producers have been calling for. A national approach provides stronger protection for free-range birds and much-needed reassurance for farmers at this challenging time. We now urged the devolved governments in Wales and Scotland to act swiftly to align with this policy so that all producers across Great Britain can operate under the same protective framework.”

Richard Griffiths, British Poultry Council chief executive, added that the housing order was “the right move at the right time.”

Tom Bradshaw, NFU president, said he was pleased to see the government acting so decisively to protect farmers: “Housing birds is an important part of a suite of measures to help prevent any further outbreaks of this devastating disease.”

Super infectious

Essentially, said Brown, we’ve got a virus that is as super infectious as any high pathogenicity avian influenza we’ve ever seen – with a lot of cases in wild birds.

“We had a very, very serious epidemic between 2021 and 2023 – in excess of 350 outbreaks in the UK. Now, it’s really, really difficult to state what the final size of this outbreak would be, but the early signals are not great,” he noted.

The good news…

Brown said the virus needed to be continually monitored for mutation: “The good news is, basically, these viruses are still bird viruses. They don’t want to be human. We have to continually monitor the virus, because it’s an influenza virus and influenza viruses change.

“Even when they’re happy in a species, such as birds, they still undergo change. They make mistakes and errors when they replicate. So that it could always spew out a variant that might be more infectious for humans,” he told BBC Farming Today.