Almost exactly one year after highly pathogenic avian influenza (AI) or “bird flu” first made the jump into dairy cattle in the U.S., AI has been found in a sheep in the UK — the world’s first detection of the virus in sheep — according to a report by the BBC.
The British government did not reveal the exact location of the infected sheep, but did say that the site in Yorkshire was located where bird flu had been confirmed in captive birds. The lone sheep that was infected was culled, and further testing revealed no other cases of AI present in the flock, the BBC reported.
UK chief veterinary officer Christine Middlemiss said the risk to livestock remained low but told any animal owners to follow the strict measures needed to ensure the disease did not spread further.
Although the H5N1 (bird flu) virus has evolved in the past year to infect different mammalian species, including cattle and humans, the risk to the general public remains low. To date, according to information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 70 people have been confirmed to have been infected with the virus in 13 states. 67 of those cases we traced to exposure to dairy herds, poultry and other animals.
AI has wreaked total havoc throughout the poultry industry, however. The BBC cited the UK’s Dept. for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, saying that 1.78 million farmed and captive birds had been culled between November 2024 and February of this year due to the spread of the virus. In the U.S., 168.2 million birds have been affected by the virus since January 2022, from wild birds to commercial farms to backyard poultry, according to the CDC.
