Avian influnza epicenter shifted from Asia to Europe
New research, published in the journal Nature, has found that the epicenter of HPAI outbreaks shifted from Asia to Europe and indicate that increasing persistence of HPAI H5 in wild birds is facilitating geographic and host range expansion, accelerating dispersion velocity and increasing reassortment potential. The research shows that while outbreaks in 2016 and 2017 began in China, two new strains of the virus emerged in African poultry (H5N8) in 2020-21 then in European wild birds in late 2021-22. The H5N1 avian influenza variant which emerged in Europe is the most virulent ever seen, reaching every continent except Oceania and Antarctica and killing unprecedented numbers of domestic and wild birds. As earlier outbreaks of H5N1 and H5N8 were caused by more stable genomic constellations, the recent changes reflect adaptation across the domestic bird–wild bird interface. Elimination strategies in domestic birds therefore remain a high priority to limit future epizootics.
