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Bird flu 'spills over' to otters and foxes in UK - BBC
Feb 02, 2023 58 secs
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) still advises that avian flu is primarily a disease of birds, but experts across the globe are looking at the risks of it spilling over into other species.

In the UK, the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) has tested 66 mammals, including seals, and found nine otters and foxes were positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1.

Prof Ian Brown, APHA's director of scientific services, said: "A sick or a dead wild bird contains an awful lot of virus.

Prof Brown said that the UK's national avian flu taskforce was now ramping up its surveillance of cases in mammals and genome analysis of the virus itself while keeping a close eye on its spread in global populations of wild birds.

Dr Gregorio Torres, WOAH's head of science, said there had been an increase in reports of non-avian species being affected by the virus over the past 18 months.

In a recent report, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) warned that the "rapid and consistent acquisition of the mutation in mammals may imply this virus has a propensity to cause zoonotic infections", meaning it could jump to humans.

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