Major Bird Flu Outbreak Will Strike Britain Each Year, Warns Government Scientist

The UK could suffer major bird flu outbreaks every year, a senior government official has warned.

- Zoe Tidman

Professor Ian Brown, head of virology at the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), said it was not known exactly why there have been record outbreaks for two years in a row, as well as a rare human case this winter. But he told The Independent these events suggest something is changing and “we need to understand what is driving it.

Bird flu has been detected at more than 70 premises in the UK over the past few months, which the government says is the country's largest outbreak to date. It tops the previous record of 26 set the year before, which Prof Brown said “now pales into insignificance”. Events were increasing in both scale and frequency, he said.

“We've got into a cycle in the last few years of incursions of bird flu into Europe and the UK almost getting to annual,” he told The Independent. “So the frequency of events increased and when those events are happening, they're translating into bigger outbreaks than we've seen in the past.