More than 70 000 birds will be destroyed in the Czech Republic due to avian influenza

The Czech Veterinary Surveillance Service said on Wednesday it had started culling 70,000 poultry following the detection of cases of avian influenza on two commercial farms.

Several European countries are battling an outbreak of bird flu, with Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany and France imposing restrictions on, for example, the keeping of poultry indoors, or ordering the culling of birds.

Petras Majer of the State Veterinary Administration (SVS) said firefighters and farm workers began destroying birds in containers filled with carbon dioxide in the morning. 

A farm in the southern village of Valdikovo confirmed bird flu on Tuesday morning, with 18,000 ducklings hatched a week ago and 2,500 adult ducks scheduled for destruction. On Thursday, the culling will continue on a farm in the central Czech town of Lanskrun, where some 40 000 hens and 13 000 roosters are kept. 

SVS has announced special preventive measures within a radius of 10 kilometres of the farms. This year, the SVS has recorded avian influenza on three commercial and 17 non-commercial farms, as well as in the wild in eight parts of the country. 

In 2024, Czech veterinarians culled more than 250,000 birds as the disease spread to 10 large commercial and 43 smaller farms. 

Bird flu outbreaks are typical for autumn and have particularly affected neighbouring Germany, where more than half a million birds had to be culled by the end of October. 

An outbreak of 139 outbreaks in European poultry farms was recorded by ADIS, the agency that monitors infectious animal diseases in Europe, between 1 July and 5 November.