Overlaid by the reports on the corona pandemic, another epidemic is currently taking place largely in secret: “We are currently experiencing the strongest avian influenza epidemic in Germany and Europe,” said the Friedrich Loeffler Institute (FLI) on the island of Riems German press agency with. New cases are added every day, and not just in wild birds. “There is no end in sight, the countries affected range from Finland to the Faroe Islands to Ireland, from Russia to Portugal.” Reports are also coming from Canada, India and East Asia.
The prospects for the coming winter weeks are not good, the Federal Research Institute for Animal Health said. In wild birds such as wild ducks, wild geese, swans and gulls, 394 infections have been recorded since the beginning of October 2021 (as of December 29, 12:30 p.m.) in Germany alone, mainly along the coast and particularly in Schleswig-Holstein. In addition, the FLI registered 46 outbreaks in poultry holdings, 18 of them in Lower Saxony alone. Other cases concerned North Rhine-Westphalia (9), Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (8), Schleswig-Holstein (4), Berlin / Brandenburg, Bavaria and Thuringia (2 each) and Saxony-Anhalt (1).
Across Europe, according to the FLI data, 675 infections in wild birds and 534 outbreaks in farms were recorded during this period. In addition, there are isolated cases of mammals: this year, red foxes in the Netherlands and Finland, gray seals in Sweden, seals in Germany and other otters in Finland have already contracted bird flu.
Eggs are running out in Israel
Other regions are currently also severely affected by bird flu. The Israeli Ministry of Agriculture recently reported mass deaths in battery cages. Hundreds of thousands of animals were killed to prevent further infection. “The Ministry of Agriculture is concerned that people could be infected by infected battery cells near homes,” it said. It is now expected that there will be a shortage of eggs on the Israeli market – around 14 million eggs are missing every month due to bird flu.