An H5 avian influenza virus killed off about a quarter of a large poultry flock in Vietnam, while an H5N8 virus resurfaced in Germany and forced the destruction of another flock, according to recent reports filed by veterinary authorities with the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
In Vietnam, an H5 outbreak that began Dec 12 in the central coastal province of Quang Ngai killed 2,965 birds in a flock of 12,000, forcing the culling of the rest of the flock, according to the report. It did not specify the type of poultry or list the "N" (neuraminidase) number of the virus, but Vietnam has a 10-year history of H5N1 outbreaks
In Germany, the detection of two cases of H5N8 infection on Dec 20 in a flock in Neuborger, Lower Saxony, forced the sacrifice of all 10,102 birds in the flock, authorities told the OIE. The report likewise did not identify the type of poultry involved.
In the same report, officials said a mallard duck was found infected in Saxony-Anhalt province in east-central Germany.
The German outbreak follows reports of two other H5N8 outbreaks on German poultry farms since early November, as well as a few detections in wild birds. The virus first surfaced Nov 4 on a turkey farm in northeastern Germany, heralding Europe's first H5N8 outbreak. Then on Dec 17 the virus was reported on a turkey farm near Cloppenburg in Lower Saxony.
H5N8 outbreaks have also popped up in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Italy in recent weeks, following widespread outbreaks in South Korea earlier this year. In addition, H5N8 viruses were detected last week in wild birds in Washington state and in a backyard poultry flock in Oregon.
Although H5N8 has not been found in commercial poultry in the United States, the finding in Oregon has prompted a number of countries to ban poultry imports from that state, according to Meatingplace, a meat industry Web site. The latest countries to announce such restrictions were Barbados, Belarus, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
In the UK, no further H5N8 outbreaks have been discovered since one was identified in Yorkshire in mid-November, the World Health Organization's regional office for Europe noted in a statement today.
Better surveillance wanted
In a related development, a large international team of experts used an article released yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases to call for a more thorough, sustained, and consistent approach to surveillance for avian flu in wild birds.
The authors mined an OIE survey, government reports, and several other sources to inventory surveillance efforts from 2008 to 2013. They found that at least 119 countries conducted surveillance in wild birds during that time, but coordination and standardization were lacking, and most efforts focused on limited subsets of flu viruses.
"Given high financial and public health burdens of recent avian influenza outbreaks, we call for sustained, cost-effective investments in locations with high avian influenza diversity in wild birds and efforts to promote standardized sampling, testing, and reporting methods, including full-genome sequencing and sharing of isolates with the scientific community," the report states.
The authors assert that setting up collaborative networks for more sustained surveillance would be more cost-effective than the current, more episodic approach. "Current efforts should be refined by leveling the investment roller coaster that has funded subtype-specific wild bird surveillance toward a lower-cost but long-term investment in collecting and sequencing wild bird avian influenza viruses," they write.
See also:
Dec 22 Vietnamese report to OIE
Dec 21 German report to OIE
Dec 17 CIDRAP News item on previous German H5N8 outbreak
Dec 23 Meatingplace story (free registration required)
Dec 22 Emerg Infect Dis report
