Sawt Falasteen - New strain of bird flu confirmed in US

A report by the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), which AFP saw on Tuesday, said "highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N9" had been confirmed in a commercial duck premise in Merced County, California.

"This is the first confirmed case of HPAI H5N9 in poultry in the United States," said Paris-based WOAH, which monitors animal diseases worldwide.

It said the outbreak, whose origin was unknown, was confirmed on January 13 and all 119,000 poultry at the farm in question had been culled.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu, which is widespread among animals in the United States, was also registered at the farm.

US animal health officials were conducting "comprehensive epidemiological investigations" and had increased surveillance in response to the outbreak, the WOAH said.

The emergence of the new strain of bird flu in the United States comes at a time when President Donald Trump has decided to withdraw the country from the World Health Organization (WHO).

The US is the largest donor to the United Nations health agency, which coordinates the worldwide response to health emergencies.

Health experts have been sounding the alarm about the potential pandemic threat to humans posed by bird flu, which has been showing signs of mutating as it spreads among cows and infects people in the United States.

They have for months been urging US authorities to increase surveillance and share more information about its bird flu outbreak.

If the US and the WHO no longer cooperate and share critical data, tracking the spread of viruses internationally will be more difficult.

The US withdrawal is "a concern for global health", the WHO said last week.

Sixty-seven people in the United States have contracted bird flu, one of whom died in early January, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said this week.

These cases were caused by direct exposure to a sick animal and the WHO has stressed that, to date, no human-to-human transmission has been reported.

But scientists have raised fears that if a person becomes infected with both bird flu and seasonal flu, the bird flu virus could mutate into a strain that is contagious between humans and potentially trigger a human pandemic.

B.Mahmoud--SF-PST