World
From chickens to foxes, here’s how bird flu is spreading across the US
A bird flu outbreak that has infiltrated six continents and is wreaking havoc in U.S. farms is among a group of avian influenza flu viruses first described in Italy in 1878 as a “fowl plague.”
This outbreak, from a strain that emerged among poultry flocks and wild birds in Europe in the fall of 2020, has been the most pervasive in the U.S. and Europe. Once the highly contagious strain – H5N1 – was identified, it quickly began spreading across Europe and into Africa, the Middle East and Asia. By October 2022, it had been declared the largest avian flu epidemic ever in Europe.
As it spread around the world, it forced the deaths of tens of millions of chickens and turkeys and has killed or sickened thousands of birds, as well as land-based mammals and marine mammals. For now, the risk to people remains low, but the longer it lingers, researchers say, the risk increases that it could evolve into a virus that has greater impact on human health.
Here are some of the key events in the transmission and spread of the virus.
May – July 2021
- Wild fox kits at a rehabilitation center in the Netherlands test positive for the virus during an outbreak in wild birds.
- Virus found in great skuas – a type of seabird – on Fair Isle, Scotland.
November – December 2021
- H5N1 first detected in North America, in poultry and in a great black-backed gull in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
- Four ducks harvested by hunters North and South Carolina test positive for the virus, the first bird flu infection among wild birds in the U.S. since 2016.
January – February 2022
April – September 2022
Fall 2022
2023
Bird flu spillover into mammals continues. Several human cases reported internationally.
March – April 2024
May 2024
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