- Eight of the UK’s top scientific organisations coming
together to find new ways to contain bird flu outbreaks
- Backed by £1.5 million investment to fund new research to
help poultry farmers protect their flock
- Announcement follows record UK bird flu outbreak
Some of the UK’s top scientists
are to set to join forces in a major new research consortium in
the UK’s battle against bird flu, it has been announced today
(Monday 20 June).
The eight-strong consortium,
headed by the world-leading research team at the Animal and Plant
Health Agency (APHA), has received £1.5 million from the
Biotechnology and Biosciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and
has been tasked with developing new strategies to tackle future
bird flu outbreaks.
This year’s bird flu outbreak
has been the largest and longest ever experienced in the UK and
in many parts of Europe. The outbreak started earlier than
previous years after the virus continued to circulate in Europe
over summer 2021 and led to over 100 cases in the
UK.
It is hoped the consortium will
be able to find new ways to contain future outbreaks. The news
will be a significant boost to the UK’s poultry sector and rural
economy, which has experienced significant disruption from this
year’s outbreak with compulsory indoor housing measures put in
place to protect poultry from this horrible disease.
The consortium will focus on
building our understanding in a number of key areas,
including:
- what it is about the current virus strains that helps them to
form larger and longer outbreaks
- understanding transmission and infection in different bird
populations, including how the virus transmits from wild birds to
farmed poultry, the gaps in biosecurity that allow the virus to
penetrate premises, and how this could be addressed
- mapping and modelling the spread of infection over time and
across species
- why some birds, such as ducks, are more resistant to bird flu
strains
- developing models to predict how the viruses will evolve and
spread in the future; and
- inform risk mitigation measures in birds to reduce disease
burden thereby protecting against zoonotic transmission occurring
from animals to humans, to prevent future spillovers of influenza
with pandemic potential into humans.
UK’s
Chief Veterinary Officer 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.”
Professor Ian Brown,
APHA’s Head of Virology and project manager,
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.”
Professor Melanie
Welham, Executive Chair of BBSRC, said:
“One of the real strengths of
the UK’s scientific response to disease outbreaks is the way that
we can draw on leading researchers from all over the country, who
can pool their expertise to deliver results, fast. This new
national consortium will study the unprecedented avian influenza
outbreak to better understand this latest strain and how to
tackle it. This will feed rapidly into government decision-making
and new strategies to protect the poultry industry and reduce the
risk of future transmission to humans.”
UK researchers are already
world-leaders in studying bird flu, with the APHA hosting an
International Reference Laboratory, which conducts testing on
global samples and rapidly shares the latest information
internationally on outbreaks. The knowledge gathered will also be
shared with international partners to aid their efforts to tackle
the disease with benefits for global risk
mitigation.
Members of the consortium will
also attend a global session this month, hosted by the US
Department of Agriculture, where they will influence and
coordinate future investment into animal influenzas on an
international basis.
Notes to
editors:
- Consortium members include: APHA, The Pirbright Institute,
Royal Veterinary College, Roslin Institute, University of
Cambridge, Imperial College London, University of Leeds and
University of Nottingham. Their researchers bring together
expertise across many areas including microbiologists,
epidemiologists, virologists, genomics specialists, mathematical
modelers and those translating science evidence into formats that
can be used by policymakers.
- The £1.5 million is allocated over one year.
- The research gaps addressed by the consortium have been
identified from the recent International Research Consortium on
Animal Health Animal Influenza Report and
knowledge gaps identified during the current outbreak.
