Bird flu outbreak 2024: EU data ‘worrying,’ expert says [Video]

PARIS –

Bird flu has been spreading faster in the European Union this season than a milder 2023, raising concerns of a repeat of previous crises that led to the deaths of tens of millions of poultry and renewing fears that it could expand to humans.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has killed hundreds of millions birds around the globe in recent years.

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However, it has not been detected in humans or in cattle in the EU, unlike the U.S. where the virus has spread to nearly 400 dairy herds in 14 states this year, and has been detected in 36 people since April.

Four of them had been working at a commercial egg farm infected by the virus.

Its spread to humans and other mammal species, including U.S. dairy cattle and swine, is …