Health officials in Abu Dhabi yesterday announced the detection of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu in quails in the western part of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), according to a report from Xinhua that cited the UAE's state news agency.
The infected birds were found in Al Gharbia, and emergency management teams have taken response steps, including increasing surveillance and alerting farmers in the area, according to the report.
Animal health officials in Ivory Coast reported a highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza outbreak at a commercial chicken farm in Abidjan district, located in the southern part of the country, according to a report today from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
The World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) posted two reports yesterday detailing three new outbreaks of H5N1 avian flu in Nigerian chickens. Nigeria—along with fellow West African nations Cameroon and Ghana—are struggling with H5N1 in their poultry populations.
Recent outbreaks in Iraq and Lebanon pose a risk to other nations because of political instability and a host of other factors.
Yesterday the World Health Organization (WHO) described five recent cases of MERS-CoV in Saudi Arabia, providing more evidence of the risk that camel contact poses in transmitting the disease.
Given past patterns, the FAO warned countries that border the Caspian and Black Seas, as well as Western Europe, to be on high alert.
In the face of stalled federal dollars to fund the fight against Zika, Florida Governor Rick Scott said he would be allocating an additional $10 million in funds from the state’s General Revenue fund to fight the mosquito-borne illness. Florida has now spent $36.2 million on Zika.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) yesterday proposed adding Bacillus cereus biovar anthracis to the list of HHS select agents and toxins as a Tier 1 Select Agent, the most concerning as a possible bioterrorism agent.
The highly pathogenic H5N2 avian flu virus strain that caused outbreaks in poultry flocks across the United States is better adapted to chickens than a precursor H5N2 virus and is highly adapted to wild ducks, according to a new study by US Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists published in Virology.
Researchers detected H5N2 highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) viruses in air samples collected inside, immediately outside, and up to 70 meters from affected barns during the 2015 outbreak in the Midwest, according to a study in this month's issue of Avian Diseases. They also found H5N2 RNA in air samples up to 1 kilometer from barns that housed infected flocks.
