Chicken farmers on a farm in the Cotswolds, England, warned that keeping birds indoors to control bird flu outbreaks could lead to cannibalism. The British government is investigating the behavior to decide next steps to prevent the disease.
It comes after the British government announced that all birds must be held in captivity from today due to a significant increase in the number of avian flu cases detected in wild and farm-raised birds, the British newspaper reported.
According to health surveillance, this is the largest avian flu outbreak of all time in the country.
In light of the mission, all poultry farmers, regardless of the type or size of animals, are required to keep animals indoors and adopt strict biosecurity measures to help protect them from threat.
Farmer Anthony Allen, owner of Cotswolds Chickens, warned in an interview with BBC radio that forcing birds, especially chickens, to stay indoors could affect their behavior, making them more aggressive.
“The regulation stipulates a kind of quarantine that requires chickens to be kept in a confined space. Forcing them to live in this situation without trying to be too detailed and technical can bring all kinds of problems and cause cannibalism. So it can lead to cannibalism. We should do something.”
Allen also criticized the government for failing to develop a more efficient strategy based on vaccination to contain the epidemic.
Christine Middlemiss, head of the UK’s veterinary division, explained why vaccines are not the main solution for bird flu.
According to the expert, previously vaccination was only carried out “in very exceptional circumstances” for zoo birds in the UK, as the currently available vaccine is not “effective against this current strain” of the virus.
Christine also noted the difficulty in distinguishing between infected and vaccinated birds. This procedure is important when it comes to declaring whether a country is virus-free.
Emphasizing that the current vaccine cannot currently cope with the avian flu epidemic, Christine insists that keeping birds indoors will double the risk of transmission to wild birds.
He explained that completely preventing contact between farm and wild birds would reduce the risk of infection by 44 times. In all cases, stringent measures such as the use of protective clothing and water and feed control will also be necessary to keep the virus out of properties.
Health surveillance experts are running emergency simulations to be ready to take action if the bird flu virus becomes dangerous to humans as well.
Christine Middlemiss said: “Because this is a zoonotic disease, it has the potential to infect humans. We at the Veterinary Department, together with the UK Health Safety Agency, are preparing for this scenario.”
source: Noticias
