The Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) and Royal Veterinary College (RVC) are participating in an important multi-disciplinary Horizon Europe project focused on highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).

The project, known as ‘Kappa-Flu’, is a four-year initiative to look at the characterisation of the key viral, host-related, and environmental factors that influence the maintenance and long-distance spread of HPAI viruses in wild birds. The project aims to improve capacity for risk-based surveillance, prevention, and control of HPAI in poultry and wildlife, and its potential impact on human health.

Kappa-Flu is led by the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI) in Germany and is a collaboration between seven European institutions. APHA and RVC, alongside the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale delle Venezie and FLI, are focussing on assessing the risk and impact of HPAI H5 viruses to agro-ecosystems in Europe. This work will include:

1. Conducting comprehensive epidemiological analysis of past epidemics in Europe, including geospatial predictive modelling of outbreaks in poultry using advance machine learning methods.
2. Developing a location-specific real-time HPAI risk assessment tool
3. Building economic models to assess the financial burden on HPAI outbreaks and determine the economic efficiency of countermeasures to prevent and control of HPAI in poultry systems.

The project will contribute significantly to advancing knowledge, tools and strategies that will strengthen Europe's ability to combat HPAI, protecting both animal and human health.

For further information on the project: https://kappa-flu.fli.de/