Is Europe doing enough to prepare for bird flu risks?

Euronews

26-05-2025

As bird flu spreads across Europe and jumps to more animal species, health experts warn that gaps in surveillance and preparedness could leave the region vulnerable to future threats to human health.
Avian influenza has been spreading at elevated levels worldwide over the past five years, including in wild and farm birds in the European Union.
Hungary has reported the most outbreaks since last autumn, followed by Germany, the Netherlands, and poultry giant Poland.
But in recent years, bird flu has also spread to mink, cats, a captive bear, and other mammals, raising the risk that the virus will eventually reach people.
Tens of millions of birds and other animals have been culled to keep that from happening, but gaps in surveillance systems increase the likelihood that the virus could circulate undetected and become harder to control.
Since 2003, about half of the nearly 1,000 people infected with H5N1 bird flu globally have died.
Now, EU health officials say public health risks remain low, and there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission. But preparations are already underway: the European Commission recently clinched a deal to secure more than 27 million influenza vaccines in case of a pandemic.
Officials are also eyeing an outbreak among dairy cows in the United States – which has spread to people, infecting 70 and killing one – as a reminder to monitor animals beyond birds and mink, which are more prone to infection.
'It's not a time to really sit back and relax and say, 'oh well, this is just business as usual,'' Marion Koopmans, who directs the centre of excellence at the Global Virus Network and leads the viroscience department at Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands, told Euronews Health.
'It has really changed compared with just a few years ago,' she added. 'It's not a good situation to have'.
EU countries actively monitor wild birds and poultry for avian influenza. When they find infections, they must take steps to stamp out the virus, such as culling birds and imposing farm restrictions.
Now, with the US cattle outbreak in mind, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is working with member states to boost surveillance in cows and other mammals, according to Alessandro Broglia, one of the agency's senior scientists.
'There is a kind of reactivity and enhanced preparedness in Europe, also to prevent the infection in cattle and other farm animals,' Broglia told Euronews Health.
Vaccination is also playing a bigger role. In 2023, France began immunising birds, a move it says has helped its poultry industry recover after outbreaks ravaged its farms and annihilated tens of millions of birds.
And last summer, Finland became the first EU country to offer bird flu vaccines to people, doling out jabs to 10,000 workers who were at higher risk of infection.
Even so, EU audits have identified gaps in these systems that could be just large enough for the virus to slip through undetected.
Over the past two years, they have found delays in setting up restriction zones to prevent the virus from spreading in Poland; 'limited effectiveness' in Portugal's early warning system for poultry infections; shortcomings in investigations of suspected cases in Spain; and poor risk assessment, a lack of surveillance, and inadequately trained staff in Hungary that constitute 'crucial weaknesses' that have not been rectified since the country was last audited in 2020.
A Commission spokesperson told Euronews Health that Spain and Portugal have taken steps to fix these issues, but that it is 'seeking additional commitments' from Hungary and Poland, which suspended poultry exports last month due to outbreaks.
Alexandre Fediaevsky, acting head of preparedness and resilience at the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), said that 'in all countries, Europe included, there is still some room for improving biosecurity and early warning systems'.
But there has been some resistance from some farmers and poultry industry groups, who fear new rules and restrictions could threaten their businesses.
'We need to have some strategic dialogue with the industry,' Fediaevsky told Euronews Health, but 'it will be a long process to really transform the production systems'.
The EU and the US are not the only places grappling with elevated bird flu risks. Last week, the Commission said poultry and meat imports from Brazil had been halted after the country confirmed its first bird flu outbreak on a farm.
For now, bird flu appears to pose a greater risk to the EU's food supply than to public health. However, Koopmans warned that without stronger measures to curb the virus' spread among birds, the bloc could be caught off guard if human infections begin to emerge.
'Let's also not become negligent,' she said, 'because this is how these viruses eventually trigger pandemics'.
Bird flu instances affecting mammals doubled in 2024 compared to the previous year - up to 1,022 outbreaks compared to 459 - and are having greater impacts, according to a new report on the global state of animal health by the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH).
During the same period, 943 outbreaks were reported in poultry, alongside 2,570 outbreaks in non-poultry species, including 1,548 among wild birds. These incidents led to the loss of over 82.1 million poultry.
Over the past two decades, more than 633 million birds have been lost either through infection or culling as part of efforts to contain the virus.
'A notable development in 2024 was the increase in HPAI outbreaks in mammals,' the report notes. It also highlights that avian influenza is no longer a seasonal or regional issue, as cases have been reported globally since 2022. The virus has affected new species of wild birds, domestic poultry, and an increasing number of mammal species, including livestock and pets.
WOAH warns that avian influenza has evolved beyond an animal health crisis into a global emergency, threatening agriculture, food security, trade, and ecosystems.
In some cases, the virus has spilled over into humans, raising concerns about its potential to develop into a broader public health crisis.
The situation is particularly worrying in the United States, where a bird flu outbreak among poultry and dairy cattle has led to 67 confirmed human cases and one death.
In Europe, there have been no human infections and no reports of the virus in cattle. The genotype currently circulating in the US has not been detected in Europe, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC).
While the risk of human infection remains low, the WOAH warns that as more mammalian species become infected, the likelihood of the virus adapting to enable mammal-to-mammal and potentially human transmission increases.
In addition to the devastating impact on poultry, bird flu is causing unprecedented mass die-offs in wild bird populations, disrupting ecosystems and threatening biodiversity, the report shows.
'As integral components of ecosystem stability, the loss of biodiversity causes cascading effects that compromise environmental resilience and global wildlife conservation,' it reads, adding that biodiversity alteration at this scale also affects migration patterns and food chains.
According to the animal health organisation, seabirds, raptors and waterfowl have suffered catastrophic losses, with entire breeding colonies wiped out.
Further consequences of the global spread of avian flu include disruption to international trade, as outbreaks often trigger strict commercial restrictions.
One example is the current suspension of Brazil's poultry exports to the European Union after the country notified the WOAH of a bird flu outbreak.
As of 19 May, the country lost its status of 'free of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI)' which means Brazilian authorities are unable to sign the animal health certificates required for exports to the EU.
The WOAH's report states that 'the scale and complexity of this ongoing epizootic require urgent action beyond traditional control measures'.
What are these traditional measures? Strict biosecurity and active surveillance have been the main strategies to date. While these have been effective to some extent, the organisation warns that the virus's relentless spread demands additional efforts.
Vaccination may offer a solution or at least serve as a valuable complement to traditional measures, as vaccines can reduce not only the spread of outbreaks but also the severity of infections.
In October 2023, France became the first EU country to roll out a nationwide vaccination campaign against bird flu in ducks, due to their key role in disease transmission.
According to the report, this initiative helped reduce the number of outbreaks from a projected 700 to just 10.
In addition to animal vaccines, some countries have started vaccination among people at risk of contracting bird flu, such as poultry farm workers.
Last year, the European Commission, purchased 665,000 pre-pandemic vaccine doses targeting avian influenza and took an option for 40 million doses over the next four years, in preparation for a potential future spread to humans.
Finland was the first country to receive the shipment after reporting becoming the first country in the world to start vaccinating humans.