Latest bird flu wave hits European farms harder than last year
Bird-flu outbreaks in EU farms jumped to 62 cases since August‚ compared to just 7 last year. Eastern European countries face the biggest impact with Hungary and Poland reporting major livestock losses
The bird-flu situation in EU farms has gotten way worse this fall‚ with disease cases going up fast (compared to same time last year)
Eastern EU areas are seeing lots of problems with bird-flu: about 62 farm outbreaks since Aug-1st which is much more than last years 7 cases. Still its better than fall-2022 when we had 112 outbreaks; this shows how things change year-to-year
Hungary leads with most cases‚ and they keep finding more. Next door in Poland (EUʼs top chicken maker)‚ they had to kill 1.8 million birds - with 1.4 million from just one super-big farm in Sroda Wielkopolska. Meanwhile French officials got worried about whats happening nearby and made farms use better safety rules in mid-october
The disease spreads through wild birds poop and infected stuff moving around‚ usually getting worse when birds migrate in autumn. While EU hasnt seen any human or cow cases yet‚ the US has some problems:
- 400 cow herds in 14 states got sick
- 36 people caught it since april
- 4 of these people worked at an egg farm
This global bird problem has killed hundreds of millions of birds lately. Scientists worry that if the virus changes it could spread between people easier - which isnt happening now but needs watching‚ especially since its showing up in different animals (like those US cows and pigs)
