Overview
- Belgium instructed all poultry to be kept indoors from Thursday after an H5N1 outbreak at a turkey farm near Diksmuide, where 319 birds died and the remaining 67,110 were culled, according to WOAH.
- France elevated its alert to high and required nationwide indoor housing for poultry effective Oct. 22, citing rising detections in migratory birds along the Atlantic corridor.
- The Netherlands announced plans to cull about 161,000 chickens at a farm in the central-eastern region following a new detection and has imposed indoor housing measures.
- Authorities attribute the early-season resurgence to infections carried by southbound migratory wild birds, with multiple farm and backyard outbreaks confirmed since Oct. 10 in France.
- The ECDC says the current risk to human health in the EU/EEA is very low, as officials expand surveillance and, in France, continue a duck vaccination campaign now in its third year.