Avian flu spreads across the world

The spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) throughout the world is advancing at a significant rate if one takes into account that more than 10 million poultry have died or have been culled due to the detection of outbreaks in the last month. These are the latest data provided by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), which in its report between December 2 and January 5 includes the detection of 288 new outbreaks in 17 countries, including Spain. The continent with the most declared outbreaks in those five weeks was Europe, with 196; followed by Asia (58); America (32) and Africa (2). Although Europe has the highest number of outbreaks, there are fewer but more aggressive outbreaks in Asia, as it is the area with the highest number of dead or euthanized domestic birds. Thus, in five weeks 5.65 million birds were slaughtered in Asia; for the 3.82 million in Europe; the 844,270 birds in America and the 5,920 in Africa. Spain enters the latter list due to a new ...