Was the bird flu outbreak at a Czech poultry farm in January 2024, resulting in the culling of 73,000 chickens, actually a deliberate scheme to introduce U.S. poultry into the Czech market? No, that's not true: Authorities confirmed the presence of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza at a poultry farm near Chocen, located two hours east of Prague.
The claim appeared in a post on TikTok on February 1, 2024 (archived here). The captions above and below the screenshot of a news report (archived here) (translated from Czech to English by Lead Stories staff) read:
A total fraud again. The USA needs to sell its chickens and those will arrive in no time. Bird flu does not exist.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Wed Feb 7 10:27:36 2024 UTC)
In a joint press release (archived here) issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and the State Veterinary Administration, it was announced that the H5N1 avian influenza was confirmed by the State Veterinary Institute's laboratory at a commercial poultry farm in Chocen on January 30, 2024. Samples were collected by state veterinarians following the deaths of hundreds of chickens in one of the farm's 10 halls, as stated in the press release. Subsequently, authorities mandated the culling of all 73,000 birds.
As early February 2024, two additional avian influenza outbreaks had been confirmed at Czech industrial farms in 2024, according to reports on the veterinary administration's website (archived here).
However, Vojtech Bily, a spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture, informed Lead Stories via email that the epidemic hasn't reached the level that would affect the poultry meat and egg market in the Czech Republic. Bily highlighted that Czech production meets 68 percent of the country's chicken meat demand. He also referenced data from the Czech Statistical Office, stating that U.S. suppliers haven't exported any poultry meat to the Czech Republic in recent years.
A search of the Czech Statistical Office's foreign trade statistics tool shows that U.S. poultry meat imports to the Czech Republic were negligible between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2023.
(Source: Czech Statistical Office screenshot taken on Fri Feb 9 13:13:18 2024 UTC)
According to the World Organization for Animal Health (archived here), bird flu is a highly contagious viral disease with "devastating consequences for the poultry industry, farmer's livelihoods, international trade, and the health of wild birds."
