Archive | H7N9 Virus
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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
24,000 ducks dead due to bird flu in Guangxi province, China
China reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N6 bird flu at a duck farm in the Guangxi province.
The report was given by the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) on Wednesday, citing a report from the Chinese agriculture ministry.
The virus killed 23,950 ducks out of a flock of 30,462 ducks, the ministry said. The remaining birds were all slaughtered, it said.
In a separate report, China also reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic H7N9 bird flu in a backyard in the Shaanxi province, the OIE said.
The virus killed 810 layers out of a flock of 1,000 birds, it says.
Courtesy of asianage.com
30,000 birds killed due to bird flu in Anhui, China
China confirmed a bird flu outbreak at some broiler chicken farms in the central province of Anhui, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday.
Local government culled 30,196 poultry birds after the outbreak, which infected 28,650 chickens and killed 15,066 of the birds, the statement said.
The outbreak was confirmed as a case of the H5N6 strain of the virus.
China also reported 13 fatalities from H7N9 bird flu in June, the government said in July, taking the death toll since October to at least 281.
China reported as many as 108 deaths from the virus in the March to May period, spurring further concerns about the spread of the deadly virus, according to data from the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
The death toll tends to drop towards the end of winter.
The National Health and Family Planning Commission did not disclose the location of fatalities or infections.
The H7N9 virus is likely to strike in winter and spring, and farmers have in the recent years ramped up measures such as cleaning regimes to prevent the disease.
China, the world’s third-largest producer of broiler chickens and the second-biggest consumer of poultry, has also closed some live poultry markets after people and chickens were infected by the avian flu strains.
Courtesy of uk.reuters.com
20,000 + Chickens killed due to bird flu in Shaanxi, China
More than 20,000 chickens died from an outbreak of H7N9 bird flu in northwest China’s Shaanxi province, official media said on Wednesday citing a local government statement.
The outbreak occurred at an egg farm run by Lvxiangyuan Ecology Co based in Yulin, a city of more than 3 million people.
A three-kilometer-radius area has been closed for disinfection, said the Xinhua report, and all poultry in the area will be culled. Poultry trading sites have been shut down.
The H7N9 bird flu has claimed the lives of more than 200 people in China in the first four months of this year, almost three times higher than the fatalities from the strain for all of 2016.
Around 400,000 birds have been culled in China since last October following outbreaks of bird flu and live poultry markets around the country have been shut down.
Courtesy of reuters.com
MASSIVE deaths of chickens killed due to bird flu in Cao Bang, Vietnam
VIET NAM – Viet Nam reported outbreaks of avian flu H5N1 and H5N6 in northern Cao Bang province, the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) said on Monday.
Accordingly, in 34 households in Quoc Toan community, Cao Bang’s Tra Linh district and one household in Cao Bang City’s Song Bang ward, massive deaths of chicken with unknown reason were recorded, the local Tien Phong (Pioneer) newspaper reported.
Local animal health officials took samples and sent them to the NIHE for tests. The test results showed that dead poultry in Tra Linh district were positive with avian influenza H5N1 while those in Cao Bang City were positive with H5N6 strain.
Cao Bang’s authorities have culled a total of 4,015 chicken and 18 doves as well as sterilized poultry cages and surrounding environment in two virus-hit areas.
The province has over 330 km of shared border with China, where avian influenza H7N9 virus is detected.
Courtesy of thepoultrysite.com
23,000 birds killed due to bird flu in Quang Ngai, Vietnam
Quang Ngai Province have culled 23,000 birds since last month in an effort to contain the virus.
Authorities in south-central province of Quang Ngai detected another bird flu outbreak, on Tuesday, forcing them to cull over 4,000 infected chickens.
The Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Duc Pho District (Quang Ngai) said the deadly virus was discovered at the poultry farm of one Tran Anh Duong in Chau Me Hamlet, Pho Chau Commune.
After a slow die-off began to take hold of his flock, on March 2, Duong contacted the authorities, according to Thanh Nien newspaper.
Provincial-level veterinary health officials collected samples at the farm; the results confirmed the appearance of the H5N6 virus.
This is the third bird flu outbreak in Duc Pho District and the seventh outbreak detected in Quang Ngai Province since February 7, which forced the local authorities to cull over 23,000 birds.
Provincial authorities have authorized livestock and veterinary health officials to use 8,400 liters of iodine to sanitize and sterilize poultry breeding areas.
Vietnam has recorded a total of 15 bird flu outbreaks scattered among 11 communes in seven provinces.
The country has been racing around the clock to snuff out various strains of the H5N1 virus as they rage through farms in neighboring China and Cambodia.
Last month, health and agriculture ministries issued warnings regarding the H7N9 virus, a rare strain first detected in China in March 2013.
So far, Vietnam has not reported any cases of the strain.
Courtesy of e.vnexpress.net
Deadly Flu Virus Kills 79 Humans And Getting Worse In China
An avian influenza virus that emerged in 2013 is suddenly spreading widely in China, causing a sharp spike in human infections and deaths. Last month alone it sickened 192 people, killing 79, according to an announcement this week by China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission in Beijing.
The surge in human cases is cause for alarm, says Guan Yi, an expert in emerging viral diseases at the University of Hong Kong in China. “We are facing the largest pandemic threat in the last 100 years,” he says.
As of 16 January, the cumulative toll from H7N9 was 918 laboratory-confirmed human infections and 359 deaths, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Despite its high mortality rate, H7N9 had gotten less attention of late than two other new strains—H5N8 and H5N6—that have spread swiftly, killing or forcing authorities to cull millions of poultry. But so far, H5N8 has apparently not infected people; H5N6 has caused 14 human infections and six deaths.
All human H7N9 cases have been traced to exposure to the virus in mainland China, primarily at live poultry markets. The strain likely resulted from a reshuffling of several avian influenza viruses circulating in domestic ducks and chickens, Guan’s group reported in 2013. Studies in ferrets and pigs have shown that H7N9 more easily infects mammals than H5N1, a strain that sparked pandemic fears a decade ago. There have been several clusters of H7N9 cases in which human-to-human transmission “cannot be ruled out,” but there is “no evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission,” according to an analysis of recent developments that WHO posted online last week. WHO’s analyses of viral samples so far “do not show evidence of any changes in known genetic markers of virulence or mammalian adaptation,” WHO’s China Representative Office in Beijing wrote in an email to Science.
Still, there are worrisome riddles. One is that H7N9 causes severe disease in people but only mild or even no symptoms in poultry. The only previous example of that pattern, Guan says, is the H1N1 strain responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic, which killed 50 million to 100 million people.
A menace again
After two quiet years, human cases of the H7N9 bird flu virus in mainland China spiked sharply at the end of last year, provoking renewed fears of an influenza pandemic.
Because poultry infected with H7N9 show few symptoms, the virus has spread stealthily, coming to the attention of authorities only after human victims appeared. Determining where the virus is circulating requires testing chickens and collecting environmental samples from live poultry markets.
Human infections have followed a consistent pattern, dropping to zero during summer, picking up in the fall, and peaking in January. During the fifth wave of H7N9 that began last fall, authorities noticed an early and sudden uptick in cases, with 114 human infections from September to December 2016, compared with 16 cases during the same months in 2015 and 31 in 2014, according to a surveillance report. The report notes that the virus has spread geographically, with 23 counties in seven eastern Chinese provinces reporting their first human cases last fall.
“It is too late to contain the virus in poultry,” Guan says. He predicts that the virus will continue to spread in China’s farms, possibly evolving into a strain that would be pathogenic for poultry. Authorities have culled more than 175,000 birds this winter to stamp out local outbreaks of H7N9 and other avian flu strains. Further spread of H7N9 “will naturally increase human infection cases,” Guan says.
H7N9 may also spread beyond China’s borders, either through the poultry trade or through migratory birds. The virus has not been reported in poultry outside China. However, warns WHO’s Beijing office, “continued vigilance is needed.”
Courtesy of sciencemag.org
China confirms another human bird flu case, second case in three days
China health authorities confirmed a new case of a man being infected by the H7N9 strain of avian influenza, state news agency Xinhua said late on Saturday.
According to Xinhua, a 53-year-old man is being treated in hospital in the southern China province of Jiangxi provincial and is in a critical condition.
Till date, China has reported a total of 17 bird flu infected people and at least two of them have died. Since October, China has culled more than 170,000 birds in four provinces and has closed some live poultry markets after people and birds were infected by strains of the avian flu.
China suffered the last major bird flu outbreak from late 2013 to early 2014 that had killed 36 people and led to more than US$6 billion in losses for the agricultural sector. Earlier this month, Shanghai, the largest city of China with more than 24 million residents, has also already reported one human case of H7N9 infection.
The virus was first reported in humans in Hong Kong in 1997. Reports say six people had died and subsequent outbreaks have killed hundreds more worldwide.
China’s Ministry of Agriculture said on Friday that the recent outbreak of the virus have been handled in a “timely and effective” manner. It did not spread and have not affected chicken products or prices.
The farmers have also increased cleaning regimes, animal detention techniques, and built roofs to cover hen pens, among other steps, to prevent the disease.
Courtesy of ibtimes.sg
40,000+ birds to be killed due to avian flu in Friesland, Netherlands
Thousands of laying hens have had to be destroyed on a farm in the Netherlands following an outbreak of Bird Flu.
The outbreak of H7N9 low pathogenic avian influenza was discovered on a poultry unit in the Hiaure, Friesland, region in the Netherlands. In the end more than 40,000 birds were destroyed to prevent further spread; a 1-kilometer restriction zone was set around the farm to restrict movement.
United Kingdom poultry farmers have been urged to be extra vigilant following the outbreak, by the department of agriculture. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said the risk level remains the same, low but heightened, because there are several strains of avian influenza viruses that have been reported in recent months across Europe.
On the Dutch farm about 48,000 hens were destroyed in two production units, the majority of which were in an organic unit. The remainder had access to an outside field. No other poultry units were found in the 1-kilometer restricted zone around the farm.
The department said it wanted to remind all poultry keepers to maintain high standards of biosecurity, remain vigilant and report any suspect clinical signs promptly. In addition, use testing for avian notifiable disease where appropriate for early safeguard.
The latest outbreak in the Netherlands was in laying hens. The department has advised that any important mild clinical signs, such as egg drop, be reported quickly, so testing can take place. The precautions are also applicable in the United States.
Courtesy of agriview.com
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