Bird Flu outbreak in poultry on 30 farms from seven states in Nigeria
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) reports an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 in poultry on 30 farms from seven states in Nigeria.
The affected states include Kano, Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, Nasarawa, Kaduna and the Niger States.
In addition the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) reports:
As of 28 March 2021, 83 human nasopharyngeal/oropharyngeal samples have been collected from contacts of confirmed birds in four states: Kano (27), Bauchi (19), Gombe (19), and Plateau (18). All contacts were farmers, farmworkers, bird-handlers, and traders, and all were asymptomatic. Of the 83 collected samples, 64 samples were analyzed using real-time RT-PCR (rRT-PCR). From the 64 analyzed samples, seven were positive for influenza A virus, including six samples of influenza A(H5) neuraminidase (NA) remains undetermined) and one sample of unsubtypable influenza A virus. These seven confirmed samples have been reported in Kano (four) and Plateau (three) states and have been shipped to the WHO Collaborating Centre in the US for further characterization.
Courtesy of outbreaknewstoday.com
100,000 poultry killed due to bird flu in Vietnam
Vietnam has culled more 100,000 poultry so far this year in a bid to contain the spread of bird flu in the Southeast Asian country, the government said on Monday.
The country has reported outbreaks of the highly pathogenic H5N1 and H5N6 bird flu strains in 14 provinces, the government said in a statement on its website.
“The risk for the outbreaks to spread on a larger scale is very high,” the statement said.
Vietnam has a poultry flock of around 460 million birds, and small-scale bird flu outbreaks have occurred sporadically in the country during the past few years.
Courtesy of bangkokpost.com
Bird flu caused deaths of 750 pelicans at Senegal bird sanctuary
Bird flu killed at least 750 pelicans found dead in Senegal’s Djoudj bird sanctuary, after authorities had initially ruled out the disease, scientific analysis has shown.
The birds – 740 juveniles and 10 adults – were discovered in the Djoudj national bird sanctuary on 23 January, and the country’s environment ministry said on Wednesday it had been closed to the public.
Now “we have the results of the analysis. It is indeed bird flu type A H5N1,” national parks director, Bocar Thiam, told Agence France-Presse.
The environment minister, Karim Sall, confirmed the bird flu diagnosis to RFM radio.
A mixture of wetlands, savannah, canals, marshes and lakes nestled in the Senegal river delta, Djoudj harbours more than 3m individual birds from almost 400 species.
Thiam had initially ruled out bird flu, claiming that it only affected birds that eat grains, rather than fish-eating birds like pelicans.
But the analysis by the ministry of livestock disproved that theory.
While the pelicans’ bodies and waste have been destroyed, parks chief Thiam said on Friday that “we’ll have to do more” to prevent the disease from spreading.
At the start of the year, Senegal culled more than 40,000 poultry after an outbreak of bird flu was detected on a farm in Thies in the west of the country.
Almost 60,000 birds had died in the preceding weeks, the livestock ministry said.
Authorities now believe that cluster has been stamped out.
Senegal’s borders have been closed to poultry products since a 2005 bird flu epidemic to prevent contaminations, but the government struggles to prevent illicit imports from neighbouring countries.
Several European countries are also suffering bird flu outbreaks, with 2m animals – mostly ducks – culled in France in December to try and keep it in check.
Courtesy of theguardian.com
1,800 migratory birds found dead due to bird flu – avian influenza in Himachal Pradesh, India
Bird flu virus was detected in around 50 crows whose carcasses were found in Indore in Madhya Pradesh last week, prompting authorities to issue an alert.
SAMPLES OF dead migratory water birds found at the Pong Dam Lake in Himachal Pradesh have tested positive for avian influenza or bird flu.
RT-PCR testing of samples of five dead Bar-Headed geese conducted at the National Institute of High Security Animal Diseases (NIHSAD) in Bhopal found all birds positive for the H5N1 avian influenza virus, according to the report.
Around 1,800 migratory birds, most of them Bar-Headed Geese, have been found dead in the lake sanctuary so far.
“The laboratory at the Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) in Bareilly had detected avian influenza in the samples of dead birds, according to information conveyed to us by the Centre Monday. We were awaiting confirmation by NIHSAD as it is the nodal body for detecting this disease,” said Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife) Archana Sharma. She added that the Northern Regional Disease Diagnostic Laboratory in Jalandhar has also suspected avian influenza in the bird samples.
Dr VK Gupta, joint director of the Centre for Animal Disease Research and Diagnosis (CADRAD) at IVRI Bareilly, where the preliminary testing was conducted, said the samples had tested positive for antigens associated with influenza. The samples were then sent to the laboratory in Bhopal for a confirmatory test and to identify the type and strain of the virus, he added.
Director of animal husbandry Dr Ajmer Dogra said that the department has formed a rapid response team to deal with the suspected epizootic.
Bird flu is a highly infectious and severe respiratory disease in birds caused by the H5N1 influenza virus, which can occasionally infect humans as well, although human-to-human transmission is unusual, according to the World Health Organisation.
Birds in large numbers have been dying mysteriously across the country in recent days. In neighbouring Haryana, around a lakh poultry birds are reported to have died in Barwala in the last few days, while in Rajasthan, the death of a number of crows in Jhalawar has been linked to avian influenza. Samples of some ducks in Kerala have also reportedly tested positive for the bird flu.
In Himachal’s Pong Lake wildlife sanctuary, wildlife staff first reported the sudden death of four Bar-Headed Geese and one Common Teal in Fatehpur area last Monday. The next day, over 400 migratory waterfowl were found dead in Majhar, Bathari, Sihal, Jagnoli, Chatta, Dhameta and Kuthera areas in the wildlife ranges of Dhameta and Nagrota. Subsequently, hundreds more birds were found dead each day, totaling 1,773 till Sunday, Sharma said.
She said more than 90 per cent of the dead birds were Bar-Headed Geese, the most common migratory species at the lake who arrive here from Central Asia, Russia, Mongolia and other regions in winters after crossing the Himalayan ranges. There are 8-9 other bird species whose members have been found dead. Last year, more than one lakh migratory birds had camped at the lake by late January and this year, more than 50,000 have arrived so far.
The dead birds are being disposed off as per bird-flu protocol, officials said, adding that no such deaths have been reported so far from other water bodies in the state.
Kangra DC bans slaughter, sale, purchase, export of poultry, birds, fish
The Pong reservoir and and an area of radius one kilometre around its periphery has been declared an alert zone, in which no human and domestic livestock activities are now allowed and the movement of tourists as well as local residents has been banned, according to an order issued by Kangra DC Rakesh Prajapati under the Disaster Management Act. The next 9 km after the alert zone comprise a surveillance zone, and all tourism activity in the reservoir area has been suspended.
The DC has also prohibited slaughtering, sale, purchase and export of any poultry, birds, fish of any breed and their related products including eggs, meat, chicken etc. in Fatehpur, Dehra, Jawali and Indora subdivisions of the district. He said that shops selling these products will also remain closed in these subdivisions.
Wildlife, veterinary and animal husbandry staff across the state have been put on alert and asked to immediately report the death of any bird or animal. The Gopalpur zoo in Kangra, which is situated near the Pong Lake, has been put on high alert.
Courtesy of indianexpress.com
137,180 birds killed due to bird flu in Vietnam #Birds #BirdFlu #Vietnam
Vietnam has so far this year culled 137,180 birds to contain the spreading of bird flu outbreaks, the government said on Thursday.
The outbreaks, including 38 outbreaks of H5N6 and five outbreaks of H5N1, have been detected in 13 out of Vietnam’s 63 provinces this year, the government said in a statement.
All of the bird flu outbreaks have happened at farms where the birds have not been vaccinated, it said, adding that, in several provinces, only 10%-20% of the birds were vaccinated.
Vietnam has a poultry flock of 460 million, and small-sized bird flu outbreaks have not been uncommon in the country during the past five years.
Courtesy of thejakartapost.com
Hundreds of thousands of poultry killed due to Bird Flu in Vietnam #Poultry #BirdFlu #Vietnam
More than 100,000 poultry have been culled in 10 provinces and cities of Vietnam where A/H5N6 and A/H5N1 bird flu broke out, Vietnam News Agency cited the country’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development as reporting on Wednesday.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said that between early January and Feb. 24, Vietnam had 34 bird flu outbreaks with over 100,000 poultry culled, among which 29 were A/H5N6 and the rest five were A/H5N1 in 10 provinces and cities of Hanoi, Bac Ninh, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Tra Vinh, Thai Binh, Binh Duong, Ninh Binh, Hai Phong and Quang Ninh. Among them, Quang Ninh has passed the required period of 21 days since the last infections and been declared clear of the outbreak.
Courtesy of xinhuanet.com
18,000 chickens killed due to bird flu in Hunan, China #chickens #BirdFlu #Hunan #China
A city in China’s central Hunan province reported that it had culled almost 18,000 chickens after an outbreak of H5N1 bird flu, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said in statement on its website Saturday.
The statement didn’t say when the outbreak occurred, or when the cull happened. Hunan is next to Hubei, the epicenter of the separate coronavirus outbreak.
The avian influenza, found in a farm in Shaoyang City, killed 4,500 chickens, more than half the farm’s flock, the ministry said. The city culled almost 18,000 poultry after the outbreak. The statement said the outbreak was of a “highly pathogenic subtype” of the H5N1 flu.
Since 2003, the H5N1 avian flu has killed 455 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
Courtesy of bloomberg.com
21,000 birds dead due to bird flu in Chhattisgarh, India #BirdFlu #Chhattisgarh #India
A poultry farm in Chhattisgarh has reported an outbreak of the highly contagious H5N1 bird flu virus, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) said on Wednesday, citing a report from Ministry of Fisheries and Animal Husbandry.
The virus killed 5,634 out of 21,060 birds on the farm in Baikunthpur and all of the remaining birds were slaughtered, the Paris-based OIE said in a website alert.
H5N1 is a type of influenza virus that causes a highly infectious, severe respiratory disease in birds called avian influenza (or “bird flu”). Human cases of H5N1 avian influenza occur occasionally, but it is difficult to transmit the infection from person to person. When people do become infected, the mortality rate is about 60 per cent.
Almost all cases of H5N1 infection in people have been associated with close contact with infected live or dead birds, or H5N1-contaminated environments. The virus does not infect humans easily, and spread from person to person appears to be unusual. There is no evidence that the disease can be spread to people through properly prepared and thoroughly cooked food.
Courtesy of indiatoday.in
24,500 #birds killed due to #BirdFlu in #Liaoning province, #China
China reported an outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 bird flu at a farm in northeastern Liaoning province, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Tuesday.
The case occurred on a farm with 24,500 birds but the ministry did not specify if they were chickens or other types of poultry.
The authorities have culled 25,472 bird following the outbreak.
Last week, Liaoning province found a strain of H7N9 bird flu at a zoo.
Courtesy of reuters.com
600+ #ducks and 66 #chickens killed due to #BirdFlu in #Cuttack, #India
A team of veterinary doctors and experts culled more than 600 ducks and 66 chickens on Sunday following confirmation of bird flu (H5N1) in the city.
Courtesy of timesofindia.indiatimes.com
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