Bird flu detected for the first time in Antarctica, says British agency

The first cases of bird flu in Antarctica were detected in seabirds, raising fears that the disease will spread quickly through dense colonies of birds and mammals in the region, according to the British Antarctic Survey, a British Antarctic research agency.

“Cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) have been confirmed in populations of greater parrots on Bird Island, South Georgia, making them the first known cases in the Antarctic region,” the agency said in a statement on Monday (23 ).

South Georgia is part of the British overseas territory east of the tip of South America and close to Antarctica. The British Antarctic Survey believes that birds can transmit the disease on their return migration to South America.

In August this year, OFFLU – an open network of global bird flu experts – warned of a “substantial risk” of the HPAI H5 virus, a species of avian influenza, spreading south from South America, where it was first detected in October 2022.

In a report published on August 23, OFFLU warned that the disease could reach Antarctica and its marine islands “due to the spring migration of wild birds from South America to breeding grounds in Antarctica.”

The network pointed to the “immense” negative impact on Antarctica’s wild bird and mammal population due to “their likely susceptibility to mortality from this virus and its occurrence in dense colonies of up to thousands of pinnipeds.” [focas, leões-marinhos, morsas, lobos-marinhos, etc.] and hundreds of thousands of birds, allowing the virus to spread efficiently,”

Avian flu is caused by naturally occurring infections among wild waterfowl, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Infected birds can transmit the virus to other animals through saliva and other bodily secretions.

Antarctica and its marine islands are home to “more than 100 million breeding birds, six species of pinnipeds and 17 species of cetaceans”, according to OFFLU, which warns of the possibility of “efficient transmission of the virus” in the region.

One of the main objectives of OFFLU, which was jointly founded in 2005 by the United Nations (UN) and the World Organization for Animal Health, is to collect data on viruses and analyze disease patterns.

The British Antarctic Survey, responsible for the UK’s national scientific activities in Antarctica, operates two research stations in South Georgia, including one on Bird Island, where the confirmed cases were identified.

These unprecedented cases come at a time when several countries have reported record outbreaks of bird flu this year. In Japan, approximately 10 million birds were killed to limit the spread of the disease, putting pressure on bird supplies and sending egg prices soaring.