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Avian Flu Expands Across Germany and Austria as Culls and Control Zones Intensify

Officials impose targeted housing orders with expanded surveillance to contain farm outbreaks.

Overview

  • Austria confirmed H5N1 in a Steyr district holding with about 700 geese, ordered humane culling, and set three‑kilometer protection and ten‑kilometer surveillance zones for at least 21 and 30 days respectively.
  • In Lower Saxony’s Grafschaft Bentheim, about 120,000 hens were killed after detection in one of ten barns at a major egg producer, with remaining flocks under intensified monitoring and restriction zones covering roughly 280 holdings with 2.5 million birds.
  • Hesse established three‑kilometer protection and ten‑kilometer surveillance areas around a Rockenberg farm where more than 2,600 birds were culled, with compensation financed by the state and the animal disease fund and a housing requirement for poultry inside the zones.
  • Kassel reported several dead wild birds with preliminary influenza A positives, issued a local housing order, and saw the organizer cancel the 70th national bird show as a precaution.
  • Lower Saxony’s agriculture minister Miriam Staudte rejected a blanket statewide housing mandate, while the opposition urged one, citing 62 outbreaks since October—52 in barns versus ten in free‑range operations.