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Free-range chickens and eggs, which mean chickens that have some kind of access to nature, even in a small area, may no longer be produced in the UK and Europe in the future due to a dramatic escalation of bird flu outbreaks, experts say according to The Guardian.
The UK and continental Europe have been hit by the biggest bird flu outbreak ever recorded this winter, causing the death of millions of birds on farms across the continent.
Experts say pathogenic variants of bird flu now appear to be affecting wild birds as well, creating a risk of infection year-round.
In the UK, farmers have been ordered to keep their birds indoors since last November.
The latest outbreak reported is on a farm in Suffolk last weekend, which led to the deaths of more than 80,000 ducks.
“There is a serious problem with free-range and out-of-range farms,” said Dr Guillaume Fournié, a veterinarian and epidemiologist at the Royal Veterinary College.
“We are seeing explosions on large farms,” he said [të brendshme] of birds that have high safety. “This suggests that with high environmental exposure to the virus, it is now difficult to ensure that a farm is 100% safe.”
Marion Koopmans, a virologist and adviser to the World Health Organization, said the situation was “terrible” for the poultry industry.
“Ecology [e gripit të shpendëve] has changed drastically in just a few years. We now have year-round local turnover in Europe, it’s not just a seasonal threat. “There is a permanent presence in the wild bird population.”
Koopmans, who participated in the WHO Covid Mission in China in 2021, said higher levels of biosecurity, poultry vaccination and reductions on intensive poultry farms in parts of Europe may all be needed to prevent outbreaks. .
Measures to ensure biosafety and prevent infection reaching chickens include cleaning and disinfection, safe storage of food and water, and quarantine of new stock.
France, which has experienced nearly 1,000 outbreaks of bird flu this winter. Avian flu vaccines have been tried, but the situation is complicated by numerous variants.
The free-range egg market has grown rapidly in the UK over the last decade. Last year, almost two-thirds of the 11 billion eggs produced in the UK last year were free-range, from
However, it is unclear how consumers would react to this change.
“The whole point of the free range is that they have the opportunity to go out.”said Andrew Knight, a professor of veterinary medicine at the University of Winchester.
Radically changing the rules for free-range eggs would be wrong, said Dan Crossley, of the Food Ethics Council.
Mark Williams, chief executive of the British Egg Industry Council, said he was confident the situation would soon return to normal.
“The biggest danger comes when migratory birds keep it around, that’s why we have these outbreaks at the same time every year between autumn and spring.”he said.
Transmission from an infected bird to humans is very rare, according to health officials, with less than five cases recorded in the UK where a man became infected from ducks he kept inside his home.
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