Tools, bird flu, first version
Bird flu biosecurity self-check
Answer 18 plain questions about your premises. See the relative risk of each way bird flu (avian influenza) could reach your poultry and other captive birds, and which three changes would help most.
Please read. This is an educational self-check built from public guidance. It is not veterinary or official advice and it is not affiliated with any government body. Your vet and APHA come first. Nothing you enter leaves your browser, and nothing is stored.
This tool is about bird flu (avian influenza) in poultry and other captive birds. The same engine will cover other diseases and species, with pigs next, so the questions are grouped by route.
The result is a relative risk for each route into your premises. It is not a probability of infection and it is not an official risk level. For the official risk level, see the latest GOV.UK bird flu assessment.
This version uses a checked parameter file, but people, vehicles, birds and eggs, and dead birds are still placeholders for a reviewer to set. Vets and keepers have not yet reviewed it. Treat the numbers as a way to compare, not as measurements.
Questions
Your picture
Relative risk, not a probability. Relative risk compares the routes with each other. 100 is the relative risk of the highest-ranked route on a premises with none of these measures in place. Ranges cover the middle 80 per cent of 5,000 runs.
The government's published risk levels are shown above. OutbreakLens does not publish its own risk level.
Routes ranked, highest first
Typical premises: all measures half done, with the reference numbers of visitors and deliveries. Shown for comparison only.
What your answers mean
What drives the uncertainty
Bars show how closely each assumption moves the combined relative risk across the 5,000 runs (Spearman rank correlation). Long bars are the assumptions that matter most. They are where better evidence would help most.
Things the law asks of you, whatever the score
- Register your birds. All keepers of birds in Great Britain must register with APHA, however few birds, since 1 October 2024. GOV.UK: register your birds
- Prevention zone measures. When an Avian Influenza Prevention Zone is in force, the biosecurity measures become a legal requirement. GOV.UK: prevention zone checklist
- Housing orders. If a housing order is made, birds must be kept indoors or fully netted. GOV.UK: housing your birds safely
- Report suspicion. England: 03000 200 301. Wales: 0300 303 8268. Scotland: your local APHA Field Services Office. GOV.UK: contact APHA
- Official risk level. See the latest GOV.UK bird flu assessment. OutbreakLens does not give a risk level.
OutbreakLens is an educational self-check made from public guidance, in a personal capacity. It is not veterinary or official advice and is not affiliated with any government body. Your vet and APHA come first. Nothing entered leaves the browser. Guidance used is published by Defra and APHA under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Some parameters are placeholders and none has yet been reviewed. Sources and status are listed at outbreaklens.com.
Every parameter, with source and status
Sources and licences
- Method: mcmodule, by Ciria N, Ciaravino G and Allepuz A (Autonomous University of Barcelona, BIOSECURE project), and Ciria et al., SVEPM 2024 poster. OutbreakLens wrote its own engine from the published equations and uses no code from mcmodule or farmR!SK.
- Parameters: PARAMETRA 1.1.0, BIOSECURE consortium, CC BY 4.0. Antonopoulos et al. (2025), Preventive Veterinary Medicine 245, 106668, doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2025.106668. github.com/BIOSECURE-EU/parametra. Each value was checked against its paper. Changes are listed in the parameter table.
- Singh et al. 2018, PLoS ONE 13(3):e0193730. Boender et al. 2007, PLoS Computational Biology 3(4):e71.
- Guidance from Defra and APHA, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0. The questions are not Biocheck wording.
Review this tool
OutbreakLens invites private veterinary surgeons, government veterinary inspectors and official veterinarians, and academic veterinary epidemiologists to review the questions, weights and parameters. Email [email protected]. Reviewers are credited on this page if they wish.