Europe has been dealing with the “most devastating” bird flu epidemic in its history for more than a year, health authorities said on Tuesday, as some 50 million birds were slaughtered on farms infected with the virus, AFP reported.

Between October 2021 and September 2022, “Europe was hit by the most devastating outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) on record,” with 37 European countries affected and more than 2,500 outbreaks detected on farms across the continent, according to a report by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and the Reference Laboratory of the European Union.

The loss of chickens, ducks or turkeys on farms is actually much higher, as this balance of 50 million euthanized birds does not include preventive slaughter that may have been carried out around outbreaks, health agency AFP was told.

The epidemic has not abated since September, and with the approach of winter, the infection even increases.

EFSA notes that “for the first time” there was no sharp division between the two waves of the epidemic, as the virus did not disappear during the summer.

And this autumn, the epidemic turned out to be stronger than in the same period last year, the number of infected farms increased by 35%.

Between September 10 and December 2, 2022, almost 400 outbreaks were reported on farms in 18 European countries, including France, Great Britain and Hungary.

The virus has also been detected more than 600 times in wild birds, including waterfowl (ducks, swans), which could have contributed to the spread of the virus on farms, according to the report.

Following a request from the European Commission, EFSA is “currently assessing the availability of HPAI vaccines for poultry and considering possible vaccination strategies”.