Abstract: Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with
free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the
company's public news and information website.
Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related
research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this
research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other
publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights
for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means
with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are
granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre
remains active.
Journal of Infection 85 (2022) 702–769
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Infection
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jinf
Letters to the Editor
Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza outbreaks amongst
bird populations in Europe - a view from China
Dear Editor,
A recent letter in this journal described an avian influenza virus
of wild bird origin that is well adapted to a mammalian host, posing a potential threat to animal and human health.1 This is reminiscent of the recent warnings about highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in Europe. HPAI, caused by highly pathogenic avian
influenza virus (HPAIV), is a zoonotic disease that seriously endangers the poultry industry, human life, and public health. In October 2022, the European centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) issued an alert stating that the 2021–2022 HPAI epidemic season in Europe was the largest ever. The latest data (as
of September 9, 2022) showed 3573 HPAI cases in wild birds and
2467 outbreaks in poultry, with 48 million birds culled.2 The geographical extent of the outbreak was unprecedented, affecting 37
European countries from the Svalbard islands to southern Portugal
and eastern Portugal to Ukraine.3
HPAI data from Europe (Fig. 1) showed both explosive growth
and significant change in the epidemic strain over the past 3 years
(Table 1). In 2018, the main epidemic strain was H5N6, whereas
in 2019–2020, H5N8 was more prevalent. In 2021, the dominant
strain changed again, and between September 2021 and September 2022, most cases were H5N1 (96.78%, 5311/5489). New strains
of HPAIV constantly emerge through mutation, insertion, or recombination of the HA and NA genes.4
Long-distance migration of birds can spread HPAI. A study of
the H5N8 HPAI outbreaks in Europe and Japan in 2015 showed
Fig. 1. HPAI outbreaks in Europe, 2018–2022. According to ECDC data on HPAI
outbreaks in the past 5 years. The 2018 data include HPAI outbreaks reported
from November 16, 2017 to November 15, 2018; 2019 data include outbreaks from
November 16, 2018 to November 15, 2019; 2020 data include outbreaks from
November 16, 2019 to December 27, 2020; 2021 data include outbreaks from December 8, 2020 to December 8, 2021; and 2022 data include outbreaks from December 9, 2021 to September 9, 2022.
Table 1
HPAI outbreaks in Europe, 2018–2022. The table shows data for HPAI outbreaks
reported by ECDC in the past 5 years. Domestic birds include poultry and captive
birds. The main strain refers to the most prevalent HPAI strain reported during that
period. (https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/surveillance report avian
influenza overview).
Number of HPAI infected birds
Time..
{ 'indexed': {'date-parts': [[2024, 8, 8]], 'date-time': '2024-08-08T07:05:04Z', 'timestamp': 1723100704964},
'reference-count': 4,
'publisher': 'Elsevier BV',
'issue': '6',
'license': [ { 'start': { 'date-parts': [[2022, 12, 1]],
'date-time': '2022-12-01T00:00:00Z',
'timestamp': 1669852800000},
'content-version': 'tdm',
'delay-in-days': 0,
'URL': 'https://www.elsevier.com/tdm/userlicense/1.0/'}],
'funder': [ { 'DOI': '10.13039/501100001809',
'name': 'National Natural Science Foundation of China',
'doi-asserted-by': 'publisher',
'award': ['81970574', '82170685']},
{ 'DOI': '10.13039/501100004921',
'name': 'Shanghai Jiao Tong University',
'doi-asserted-by': 'publisher'},
{ 'DOI': '10.13039/501100008233',
'name': 'School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University',
'doi-asserted-by': 'publisher'},
{ 'DOI': '10.13039/100017950',
'name': 'Shanghai Municipal Health Commission',
'doi-asserted-by': 'publisher',
'award': ['18ZXY001', 'ZXYXZ-201904']}],
'content-domain': { 'domain': [ 'clinicalkey.fr', 'clinicalkey.jp', 'clinicalkey.es', 'clinicalkey.com.au',
'clinicalkey.com', 'journalofinfection.com', 'elsevier.com',
'sciencedirect.com'],
'crossmark-restriction': True},
'published-print': {'date-parts': [[2022, 12]]},
'DOI': '10.1016/j.jinf.2022.10.002',
'type': 'journal-article',
'created': {'date-parts': [[2022, 10, 8]], 'date-time': '2022-10-08T05:54:50Z', 'timestamp': 1665208490000},
'page': '702-769',
'update-policy': 'http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/elsevier_cm_policy',
'source': 'Crossref',
'is-referenced-by-count': 7,
'title': 'Efficacy of Paxlovid in patients with acute kidney injury who developed COVID-19',
'prefix': '10.1016',
'volume': '85',
'author': [ { 'ORCID': 'http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3728-2681',
'authenticated-orcid': False,
'given': 'Hong',
'family': 'Cai',
'sequence': 'first',
'affiliation': []},
{'given': 'Jiayi', 'family': 'Yan', 'sequence': 'additional', 'affiliation': []},
{'given': 'Jieying', 'family': 'Wang', 'sequence': 'additional', 'affiliation': []},
{'given': 'Xiajing', 'family': 'Che', 'sequence': 'additional', 'affiliation': []},
{'given': 'Shan', 'family': 'Mou', 'sequence': 'additional', 'affiliation': []}],
'member': '78',
'reference': [ { 'issue': '10224',
'key': '10.1016/j.jinf.2022.10.002_bib0001',
'doi-asserted-by': 'crossref',
'first-page': '542',
'DOI': '10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30374-3',
'article-title': 'WHO Scientific and Technical Advisory Group for Infectious Hazards. '
'COVID-19: what is next for public health?',
'volume': '395',
'author': 'Heymann',
'year': '2020',
'journal-title': 'Lancet'},
{ 'key': '10.1016/j.jinf.2022.10.002_bib0002',
'article-title': 'Efficacy and safety of Paxlovid for COVID-19: a meta-analysis',
'author': 'Zheng',
'year': '2022',
'journal-title': 'J Inf'},
{ 'key': '10.1016/j.jinf.2022.10.002_bib0003',
'doi-asserted-by': 'crossref',
'DOI': '10.1056/NEJMoa2204919',
'article-title': 'Nirmatrelvir use and severe Covid-19 outcomes during the omicron surge',
'author': 'Arbel',
'year': '2022',
'journal-title': 'N Engl J Med'},
{ 'issue': '1',
'key': '10.1016/j.jinf.2022.10.002_bib0004',
'doi-asserted-by': 'crossref',
'first-page': '151',
'DOI': '10.1681/ASN.2020050615',
'article-title': 'Mount Sinai COVID Informatics Center (MSCIC). AKI in Hospitalized '
'patients with COVID-19',
'volume': '32',
'author': 'Chan',
'year': '2021',
'journal-title': 'J Am Soc Nephrol.'}],
'container-title': 'Journal of Infection',
'original-title': [],
'language': 'en',
'link': [ { 'URL': 'https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S016344532200562X?httpAccept=text/xml',
'content-type': 'text/xml',
'content-version': 'vor',
'intended-application': 'text-mining'},
{ 'URL': 'https://api.elsevier.com/content/article/PII:S016344532200562X?httpAccept=text/plain',
'content-type': 'text/plain',
'content-version': 'vor',
'intended-application': 'text-mining'}],
'deposited': { 'date-parts': [[2023, 1, 17]],
'date-time': '2023-01-17T00:15:35Z',
'timestamp': 1673914535000},
'score': 1,
'resource': {'primary': {'URL': 'https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S016344532200562X'}},
'subtitle': [],
'short-title': [],
'issued': {'date-parts': [[2022, 12]]},
'references-count': 4,
'journal-issue': {'issue': '6', 'published-print': {'date-parts': [[2022, 12]]}},
'alternative-id': ['S016344532200562X'],
'URL': 'http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2022.10.002',
'relation': {},
'ISSN': ['0163-4453'],
'subject': [],
'container-title-short': 'Journal of Infection',
'published': {'date-parts': [[2022, 12]]},
'assertion': [ {'value': 'Elsevier', 'name': 'publisher', 'label': 'This article is maintained by'},
{ 'value': 'Efficacy of Paxlovid in patients with acute kidney injury who developed '
'COVID-19',
'name': 'articletitle',
'label': 'Article Title'},
{'value': 'Journal of Infection', 'name': 'journaltitle', 'label': 'Journal Title'},
{ 'value': 'https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinf.2022.10.002',
'name': 'articlelink',
'label': 'CrossRef DOI link to publisher maintained version'},
{'value': 'simple-article', 'name': 'content_type', 'label': 'Content Type'},
{ 'value': '© 2022 The British Infection Association. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights '
'reserved.',
'name': 'copyright',
'label': 'Copyright'}]}
