Bird flu is once again causing concerns. Back in late March, 1.5 million chickens and turkeys from the American state of Iowa were about to be slaughtered to prevent the spread of the disease.
But this time, we’ll focus our attention on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. According to Daily Mail, an expert known as Professor Ian Brown says that the majority of bird flu cases in the UK are being reported in gardens. Therefore, he believes that those people who keep their flocks in gardens might be nurturing the surge of bird flu.
121 outbreaks of the H5 variant were reported in the UK in 2022
2022 has seen a tremendous increase in bird flu cases in the UK. This winter in the country, there has been the largest and longest bird flu outbreak.
Keeping chickens in the gardens is even a trend that’s becoming more popular among Britons.
Professor Ian Brown explained as Daily Mail quotes:
Over the past ten years, we’ve had several bird flu events in the UK, but their frequency has been increasing.
Instead of coming every three or four years, we seem to be getting an event every year, and… they’re on a bigger scale.
The more humans are in contact with birds in an uncontrolled way, the greater is the theoretical risk that people can get infected.
Humans getting infected with bird flu represent relatively rare cases. However, here’s an important statement issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
More than 700 human infections with Asian HPAI H5N1 viruses have been reported to WHO from primarily 15 countries in Asia, Africa, the Pacific, Europe and the Near East since November 2003. Indonesia, Vietnam and Egypt have reported the highest number of human HPAI Asian H5N1 cases to date.
The H5N1 virus was first identified in Southern China and Hong Kong while it first appeared in 1996.
