The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) has urged all bird keepers to ‘remain vigilant and take action to protect their birds’ following a further increase in the avian influenza (‘bird flu’) risk levels in Great Britain.
The risk level of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) H5 in poultry where there is suboptimal or poor biosecurity has increased to medium with low uncertainty.
The risk level where good biosecurity is consistently applied at all times remains assessed as low with low uncertainty and the risk level in wild birds remains assessed as high.
Practicing good biosecurity at all times protects the health and welfare of your birds and for commercial keepers will help protect your business from HPAI and other diseases.
Further information on the evidence which supports these risk levels can be found in Defra’s risk and outbreak assessments.
Find out what you can do to prevent bird flu and stop it spreading and how to spot and report it in poultry or other captive birds.
For further information on the latest situation please see the following websites:
In England GOV.UK, in Scotland GOV.SCOT and in Wales, GOV.WALES.
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Further reading: First case of bird flu confirmed in poultry in England this autumn
