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Europe’s vast pig herds threaten to become a “dangerous virus laboratory” should they be infected by the growing international bird flu outbreak that has already spread to poultry, cattle and sheep, the EU’s food safety chief has warned.
The continent must be on high alert after mass contamination of livestock in the US has stoked fears the pathogen could mutate to spread between people, said Bernhard Url, outgoing executive director of the European Food Safety Authority.
His remarks highlight the alarm caused by the latest H5N1 bird flu outbreak’s infiltration of other species.
The US H5N1 outbreak that began in March last year has spread to dairy cattle in 17 states and poultry in all 50. Authorities have confirmed scores of infections in humans, including one death.US authorities reported two cases in pigs at a backyard farm in Oregon last year, while the UK in March announced the first infection in sheep.
Europe has a large pig population by world standards, with 133.6mn animals as opposed to 75.8mn in the US. China has about 400mn.
“Bird flu for sure is a special case in the sense that it’s spreading from birds more and more to mammals,” Url said in an interview.
He pointed to the risk that, if the pathogen began to circulate in pigs, it could exchange genetic material with human influenza to become transmissible between people. Scientist see pigs as a particular risk because their biology makes them effective mixing vessels for pathogens from both birds and humans.
“That would be a . . . dangerous virus laboratory for recombination,” said Url, whose agency advises on existing and emerging food risks in the EU.
The H5N1 situation was “relatively well under control” in Europe, Url said, although he noted outbreaks in poultry had led to culls of millions of birds. Authorities including his agency were working to implement biosecurity measures, including farm closures and assessments of emerging threats, he added.
“In the background, there is a system of monitoring, surveillance and collecting strains from migratory birds,” said Url, who is due to step down in September after more than 11 years in post.
Virologists from 40 countries last week urged President Donald Trump’s administration to step up action on the H5N1 outbreak, warning of the risk the virus could evolve into a pandemic threat.
Other animal disease threats in Europe include African swine fever, bluetongue, and foot-and-mouth disease, said Url, who grew up on an Austrian farm and trained as a vet. Climate change is driving the spread in Europe of biting midges that carry bluetongue, a disease potentially lethal to sheep and deer.
The outbreak in January of foot-and-mouth disease in Germany — the country’s first for almost 40 years — was “really surprising”, Url said.
The disease was later detected on farms in Slovakia and Hungary, leading to the slaughter of thousands of animals. The outbreak led Slovakia to close some border crossings with Hungary. Neighbouring Austria shut some crossings between it and both countries.
Germany has since been declared foot-and-mouth free by the World Organisation for Animal Health.
Food safety standards in the EU were generally “really high”, said Url, though the growth of antibiotic-resistant pathogens in livestock was a “big public challenge”. Efforts were ongoing to reduce the use in agriculture of drugs that drove resistance, he added.