Official reports of new outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in poultry have been received from Iran and Taiwan in the last week, while the virus has again been detected in wild birds in Denmark.
Taiwan’s Council of Agriculture has informed the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), confirming that the H5N2 variant of the HPAI virus has been detected at two new locations. One of the new outbreaks was in a flock of almost 7,000 native chickens at a farm in the town of Lukang in Changhua county in early December. One month later, the same virus was detected in a flock of 4,761 meat ducks in the city of Douliu in Yunlin county. No birds died or showed signs of the disease at either location, but all were destroyed and the usual control measures have been put in place to prevent the further spread of the disease, which has been impacting the poultry sector for the last four years.
There has been one new outbreak of HPAI linked to the H5N8 virus subtype in Iran, the country’s Veterinary Organization has reported to the OIE. Latest to be affected was a flock of more than 12,000 birds in a flock described as “backyard” in the centrally located province of Qom. Around 8,000 of the birds died, and the rest of the flock was destroyed. The authorities linked this outbreak to previous cases at two locations in Mazandaran in the north of the country.
In India, Patna zoo has reopened to visitors, according to Hindustan Times. The move follows an investigation by the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) at the location in the state of Bihar, which revealed no recent samples had tested positive for HPAI virus. The zoo was closed indefinitely after a number of birds there succumbed to the disease in December.
Europe: HPAI detected again in wild birds in Denmark
HPAI of the H5N6 virus subtype has been detected for the first time in recent months in two wild birds in Denmark. According the latest reports from the Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries to the OIE, one buzzard and one eagle found dead on the island of Zealand in the last week have tested positive for the virus. These are the first cases in the country since September of last year.
Africa: HPAI resolved in Congo
The H5N8 HPAI situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been resolved, according to the Central African state’s Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in a final report to the OIE. The country experienced 31 confirmed outbreaks of the disease since April of 2017. All were in Ituri, a province in the north-east of the country that borders Uganda. The most recent cases were in December of 2017.
