Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their latest assessment of the level of avian influenza in the UK.

During the latest outbreak, beginning on 26 October 2021, and as of 2 February 2022, there have been 595 findings of avian influenza in wild birds in Great Britain, in 179 locations involving 31 bird species in 65 counties.

There have also been 83 cases of HPAI H5N1 confirmed in poultry and captive birds in Great Britain (74 cases in England, 3 cases in Wales, 6 cases in Scotland). In addition, 5 cases have been confirmed in Northern Ireland. This represents the largest outbreak of avian influenza to date, in comparison to 24 cases in Great Britain (in addition to 2 in Northern Ireland) in 2020/2021 and 13 cases in Great Britain in 2016/2017.

As regards risk, the risk of incursion of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5 in wild birds is currently assessed as very high (with low uncertainty) for England and high (with high uncertainty) for Wales and Scotland.

The risk of poultry exposure to HPAI H5 across Great Britain is currently assessed as medium (with low uncertainty) where good biosecurity is applied, but high (with low uncertainty) where there are substantial biosecurity breaches or poor biosecurity. If, however, stringent biosecurity is in place the risk would be low for these premises.

Further information on the evidence, including the latest scientific and ornithological evidence and veterinary advice, which supports these risk levels can be found in the Defra and Animal and Plant Health Agency’s risk and outbreak assessments available on GOV.UK at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/avian-influenza-bird-flu-in-europe