EFSA’s Bird Flu Radar

EFSA’s Bird Flu Radar is a prototype Early Warning System for Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreaks in wild birds developed for the European Food and Safety Authority through a collaboration between EURING, EuroBirdPortal and Ausvet Europe.

The system, launched in early March, combines models of distribution and movement based on the EBP and EURING data shown in the new Migration Mapping Tool and the information on Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreaks available from EMPRES-i to estimate the spatiotemporal risk pattern of HPAI introduction in Europe.

The tool will be under constant development and will be further expanded during the next three years. These important developments are funded through a contract with the European Food Safety Authority.

Currently the EFSA’s Bird Flu Radar tool is provided through an R Shiny App developed by Ausvet, but this functionality will be fully incorporated within the Migration Mapping Tool later in the year.

It should be stressed that this work is essentially about waterbirds, as EFSA’s primary motivation is to better understand disease spread in domestic poultry. Other groups such as seabirds pose some very different problems, although hopefully some of the methods we have developed may be relevant.

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Gabriel Gargallo