20 Jun 2022
Consortium receives £1.5 million from Biotechnology and Biosciences Research Council and Defra to develop new strategies to tackle future avian influenza outbreaks.
Paul Imrie
Job Title
Image © Sven Lachmann / Pixabay
Scientists are joining forces in a new £1.5 million research consortium to tackle avian influenza.
The consortium has received the money from the Biotechnology and Biosciences Research Council and Defra to develop new strategies to tackle future bird flu outbreaks.
Outbreaks occur each year due to the UK’s position in the migratory flight path for wild birds flying across northern Europe, but the country was particularly hit in the winter.
More than 100 cases – including of H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza – were reported across the UK and temporary bird flu prevention zones, which required kept birds to be housed indoors, were set up by the CVOs for the UK, Scotland, Wales, and later Northern Ireland in November.
An eight-strong consortium – headed by the APHA and including The Pirbright Institute, The Roslin Institute, the RVC, universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Nottingham, and Imperial College London – will develop strategies to tackle outbreaks that can then be shared with international partners.
The project will bring together expertise from microbiologists, epidemiologists, virologists, genomics specialists and mathematical modellers.
Research will include:
It will also look, for example, at why some birds, such as ducks, are more resistant to bird flu strains.
UK CVO Christine Middlemiss said: “This new consortium will allow us to combine our expertise at a national level to increase the speed and quality of our research, ensuring we can develop new strategies to aid our efforts against this insidious disease, and hopefully in time reduce the impact on the poultry sector.”
APHA head of virology and project manager Ian Brown said: “This investment in a new research consortium will bring together the greatest minds from eight world-leading British institutions to address gaps in our understanding of bird flu, helping us to control the spread of the disease, while furthering UK animal health science and ensuring we maintain our world-leading reputation in the field.”
Munir Iqbal, head of Pirbright’s avian influenza virus group, said: “As an institute we are extremely proud to be part of this.
“Avian influenza is an economically important virus that has devastating effects on the poultry industry; therefore, improved understanding of the virus will give us more insight into how it spreads, and inform our control strategies to prevent it from spreading to people and other animals.”
Guillaume Fournié, senior research fellow at the RVC, said: “The scale of the incursion of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus in the UK and Europe over the winters 2020-21 and 2021-22 makes it necessary to review gaps in our understanding of the dynamics of these viruses, and especially the role of wild birds in spreading, and potentially maintaining, their circulation.”
Dr Fournié added: “As part of this project, the RVC will contribute to improve our understanding of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus dynamics in wild bird populations, at the interface between wild birds and domestic poultry, and its potential to cause large outbreaks among farms.
“This information will allow us to inform the design of more targeted surveillance activities and risk mitigation interventions better tailored to the UK poultry sector.”
