A case of H5N9 avian influenza has been confirmed at a duck farm in California, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE).
This is the first time this strain has been detected in the United States.
"The presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N9 of the Eurasian goose/Guangdong lineage and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 has been confirmed at a commercial duck farm in Merced County, California," WPAI reported, as quoted by AFP.
"This is the first confirmed case of HPAI H5N9 in poultry in the United States," stressed the organization, which monitors animal diseases globally.
This case was confirmed on 13 January and its origin is unknown, according to the WPAI report. All 119,000 poultry on the farm were euthanized.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), in cooperation with state animal and wildlife health officials, is conducting extensive epidemiological investigations and enhanced surveillance in response to events associated with highly pathogenic avian influenza.
The emergence of a new strain in the United States comes at a time when President Donald Trump, who came to power on January 20, signed an executive order aimed at withdrawing the country from the World Health Organization (WHO), a body he has in the past harshly criticized for its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The withdrawal is all the more worrying as the high level of spread of the avian flu virus (H5N1 strain) among animals in the United States heightens fears of a future pandemic among humans.
Without cooperation and information sharing between the United States and WHO, international surveillance of the virus would be more difficult.
In early January, the first human death associated with the H5N1 virus was reported in the United States.
For now, the avian flu outbreak is limited to animals. The 60 or so human cases recorded in the United States, including the deceased, were caused by direct contact with an animal, and WHO says no human-to-human transmission of the virus has been recorded.
But scientists fear that bird flu in combination with seasonal influenza could mutate to a form that is contagious to humans and cause a pandemic. | BGNES
