Outbreaks of bird flu seem to be increasing in severity in recent years. The variant that is now circulating is known to be highly contagious. In the wild, not only infected birds are found, but also mammals such as a fox, polecat and an otter. The virus is emerging throughout Europe this winter, the German Friedrich Loeffler Institut spoke of the largest outbreak ever on the continent in December.
In the Netherlands, according to Minister of Agriculture Henk Staghouwer, it is still too early for such conclusions. But he did state in a letter to the House of Representatives last week that bird flu has become a ‘structural problem’ that poses a ‘permanent threat to poultry farming’. ‘This requires solutions in the longer term.’
The last infection was detected on Tuesday at a farm with 168 thousand chickens in Vuren. Bird flu was also found on Sunday at a duck farm in Biddinghuizen. A week earlier there were already outbreaks in Willemstad and Grootschermer. For the latter company, where 170,000 chicks had to be culled, it was the second infection in a few months. However, few other companies were close by.
High-risk area
The most worrying contamination was found on a small farm with about three thousand ducks in Ede. Due to the poultry density, the Gelderse Vallei is a high-risk area for the further spread of the virus. There are 6 other poultry farms within a kilometer of the company, 14 within three kilometers and no fewer than 215 poultry farms within a radius of ten kilometres. The nearest businesses are closed and regularly checked for bird flu. A transport ban applies to companies within ten kilometers.
Professor of virology Thijs Kuiken thinks that the real test will only come after the virus has arrived in the poultry-dense Gelderse Valley. ‘In 2003, the largest outbreak ever in the Netherlands so far, it also started there. It is very clever that so far we have managed to prevent exchanges between companies, but I am holding my breath. The risk of companies infecting each other is much greater here.’
According to Bart-Jan Oplaat, chairman of the Dutch Poultry Farmers’ Union, farmers do everything they can to prevent this. ‘Awareness is much higher now than in 2003, when you saw a lot of diffusion between companies. Farmers pay close attention to hygiene measures and do not allow unnecessary visitors to the barn.’ A national confinement obligation has been in force since the end of October.
Until now, wild waterfowl such as geese have been the driving force behind the outbreak. This variant of the bird flu virus made the leap to wild birds in Asian poultry farms some time ago and appears to be capable of infecting new species all the time. ‘We let the virus slip out of our hands,’ says Kuiken. ‘We have absolutely no control over the virus in the wild bird population. Now that mammals are also susceptible, the risk for humans is increasing. Historically, flu pandemics have always had an element of bird flu in them.’
Vaccination
One option to combat the disease in the short term is vaccination. For the time being, the available vaccines mainly help against disease, not against infection. ‘This is undesirable with bird flu, because you don’t want the virus to spread without realizing it,’ explains professor of veterinary medicine Arjan Stegeman. ‘A vaccine that works against the spread is in the future, that will not help this or next season. But certainly due to the seriousness of the outbreaks in recent years, it is becoming a more realistic option.’
For the longer term, Oplaat proposes to think more carefully about which animals it attracts when designing new nature. ‘You certainly don’t want to create a magnet for waterfowl near poultry farms.’ It bothers him that farmers who advocate this are dismissed as opponents of nature. ‘We are lovers of nature, but we do want to think seriously about how we organize it.’
‘As a poultry farmer, it is wise to make your company site unattractive for waterfowl’, Stegeman agrees. ‘But I doubt whether that will work for the Netherlands as a whole. We are a country in a delta, every winter millions of waterfowl flock here. Removing those breeding grounds is not realistic, and I don’t think we should want to.’
Reduction of livestock
For solutions, Kuiken refers to the report published last year by the Zoonoses Expert Group, of which Stegeman and himself were members. It recommended, among other things, reducing the density of farms and the number of animals per farm, and banning poultry farms from waterfowl-rich areas. ‘It is not the case that with half the number of animals you have half the chance of mutations, but it does matter whether you have a hundred or 100 thousand animals,’ says Kuiken.
Oplaat cannot agree with that. ‘Despite the fact that we are located in a water-rich delta, the Netherlands has relatively few outbreaks compared to other countries in Europe. This is due to our high safety standards. Thanks to our monitoring, we can also detect the virus at large companies before it mutates.’
Ultimately, according to Kuiken, bird flu must be seen in connection with other problems, such as climate change and the reduction of biodiversity. “I think it’s wise not to focus solely on this acute problem, but to tackle all related issues at the same time. Reducing the livestock population would certainly help with that.’
Free-range egg disappears due to the obligation to keep
The national confinement obligation has painful consequences for poultry farmers who normally supply free-range eggs. According to European regulations, eggs from a chicken that has been indoors for more than sixteen weeks cannot be given the ‘free range’ stamp. That date has been reached on 16 February and the free-range eggs will therefore disappear from the supermarket shelves.
The eggs will instead be sold as free-range eggs. A group of representatives of the poultry sector warned in a letter to Minister Staghouwer of ‘major financial consequences’ for free-range farmers. Farmers then have to sell their eggs as free-range eggs, which yields less.
The sector therefore wants the European rules to be temporarily suspended, so that the eggs can still be sold as free range. ‘The government wants more free-range eggs, so it should commit itself to that,’ says Oplaat. ‘Now farmers are being punished, while there is nothing they can do about the chickens not being allowed outside.’
The Ministry of Agriculture says in a response that it “understands” the concerns of poultry farmers and that it will consult with the sector about the problem, “not only for the short term but also for the longer term”. But Minister Staghouwer wrote in his letter to parliament on Tuesday that he sees no room for the time being “to relax the confinement obligation for free-range companies.”