The United Kingdom has detected bird flu in a sheep for the first time, the government announced today.
The case, found in a sheep in Yorkshire after repeated milk tests, was identified “following routine surveillance” of livestock on a premises where avian influenza had been confirmed in captive birds, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Animal and Plant Health Agency said.
No further infection with the virus was detected in the remaining flock and there is no evidence to suggest an increased risk to the nation’s livestock population, they added. But U.K. Chief Veterinary Officer Christine Middlemiss urged livestock keepers to “remain vigilant.”
The government said it introduced livestock surveillance of infected premises because of the outbreak of avian influenza in dairy cows in the United States.
America has been grappling with a devastating bird flu outbreak that has wiped out more than 166 million birds since 2022, spread to dairy cattle in 17 states and led to soaring egg prices.
Earlier this month, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization warned the rapidly expanding H5N1 outbreak was “unprecedented” and leading to “serious impacts” on food production, rural jobs, local economies and prices for consumers.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has suggested letting the avian flu virus spread through farms to “find and identify” birds that are immune to it — an idea that has drawn criticism that this would increase the risk of it evolving to be dangerous to humans.
European Union health authorities recently warned that bird flu has been detected in domestic cats and wild carnivores in Europe for the first time since spring 2024 — a sign that the virus continues to spill over into mammals.
Scientists and researchers have grown increasingly concerned over bird flu’s cross-species transmission and its adaptive nature, which could lead to possible human spillover and pose a pandemic threat.
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