Dead birds falling from the sky is a bad omen for the planet

Brazil the world’s biggest exporter of chicken meat announced an animal health emergency that will last 180 days.

This week the World Organisation for Animal Health also said that governments should consider vaccinating poultry against bird flu, to prevent a new pandemic.

The deaths are the result of a new variant of H5N1, a strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza.

H5N1 crossing over into humans has so far been rare, but that could change, says Kuiken.

The EU’s non-vaccination policy for poultry needs to be dropped, he says.

The emergence and spread of new variants is correlated to the density of birds in farms.