2023-05-10 07:00:01
If it is up to experts, chickens and pigs will no longer be kept together on one farm. It happens more and more often that the bird flu virus spreads to mammals. If that happens in pigs, there is a risk that a new mutated virus will develop that, according to experts, can be dangerous for humans.
The zoonoses expert council (DB-Z) wrote an advice to the cabinet stating that mixed farms are ‘undesirable’. These are farms where poultry and pigs live on one farm. There are about a hundred of these in the Netherlands.
According to epidemiologist Arjan Stegeman, vice-chair of the DB-Z, pigs in particular can play a negative leading role when it comes to the mutation of bird flu. Those animals often suffer from all kinds of flu viruses that circulate a lot.
Risk of dangerous new virus
“There is a chance that if such a pig is simultaneously infected by a pig virus and an avian flu virus, a mixture of those viruses will arise, which will lead to a dangerous new virus variant.”
Potentially dangerous for humans. Also because pigs look much more like people than birds, says Stegeman. For example, the body temperature of a pig is close to that of a human. “So it means that the virus has a higher chance of making the transition to humans.”
Agriculture minister Piet Adema says in a response that it will not be banned for the time being to keep poultry and pigs on one farm. He does say that pigs are being tested after an avian flu outbreak at a mixed farm. RIVM is also investigating which flu viruses are circulating among pigs. Results are expected this fall.
The specter is that bird flu mutates in a Dutch pig and leads to a virus that resembles corona and circulates among people. Although the expert council on zoonoses is now sounding the alarm about mixed farms, the risk of that specter is currently estimated to be low. Moreover, it is also possible that the virus mutates in another place in the world. For example, with a mink in Spain, or with a sea lion in America, and thus still jumps to humans.
‘Mixed’ farmers bale
Of the approximately one hundred mixed farms in the Netherlands, seventeen are owned by farmer Geert van der Veer. He is the founder of the agricultural cooperative Herenboeren, an agricultural concept that is therefore called undesirable by the expert council on zoonoses. And he talks about that. “I understand that the experts say that this is a risk,” says Van der Veer. “But we separate the chickens and the pigs.”
On his property in Boxtel, he not only grows fruit and vegetables in a food forest. He also has cattle, pigs and 250 chickens. The latter group is in a ‘chicken caravan’. They are not allowed to go outside because of the confinement obligation. It is in force because of, of course, bird flu.
The Brabant farmer would prefer to have all his chickens vaccinated. But the vaccine for poultry is still pending.
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