How Can Farmers Keep Poultry Safe as Bird Flu Evolves and Spreads in Europe?

CGTN Europe spoke to Professor Marion Koopmans from the Erasmus Medical Centre in The Netherlands.

Transcript

00:00It's a variation on the theme that we've been seeing for the last few years and what happened

00:06in 2020 is that a certain strain of bird flu moved from Asia across the globe first into Europe then

00:17into the Americas and unlike the years before that it has lingered on so it's spread widely

00:24among wild birds and there has continued to change to to pick up changes so what we see now

00:31is a variant of that global strain that has picked up some mutations inside Europe and now is causing

00:41again devastating outbreaks so it is really a continuing continuously evolving situation

00:50and then that's really unfortunate huge implications for farming across Europe then a big economic burden

00:59that's that's correct and we've seen that for several years in a row now and because these viruses

01:06in the highly pathogenic form are now present in wild birds it's this is a situation that most likely will

01:15continue to happen in in the in the time ahead of us so that's also why in Europe now vaccination

01:24of poultry has become part of the options that that wasn't possible before but because the the situation

01:33from before where we would see dying out of this strain of virus in the wildlife that is not happening

01:40anymore so we really need to think about other solutions well you just mentioned that the mass

01:46vaccination of poultry on industrial farms how else can farmers raise healthy birds and protect their flocks

01:56well that was what just was mentioned there is a lot of information on how to increase biosecurity

02:03so keep wild birds out also reduce or restrict movements of people in going in and out where

02:12farms are located so there's detailed information on that available in the different countries of Europe

02:19so what indicates that you go go on sorry but it's very difficult really to keep these viruses out we

02:26see that again and again so i can see how this is a big concern for farmers so what are you looking out for

02:32what indicators are you closing watching closely watching for um over the next few weeks so this is the

02:40situation as we see it now affecting farms we are also of course aware of potential infections of other

02:50animals we've seen a lot of mammals getting infected in the last few years

02:55um and that may include humans so it is important to also make sure that humans may also get infected

03:04and that people who are in contact with infected birds report themselves if they get symptoms if they

03:12get sick to get tested marian koopmans at erasmus medical center in the nathalus thank you