Tests reveal H5N1 in Israeli turkeys, four countries report other strains…”Taiwan finds more H3N2, H5N2″
Lisa Schnirring
CIDRAP News
Jan 20, 2015
Animal health officials in five countries saw no let-up in highly pathogenic avian influenza detections in poultry and wild birds over the past few days, with H5N1 striking a turkey farm in Israel, marking the virus’ first appearance in that nation in 3 years.
Taiwan continued to grapple with dozens more outbreaks involving a novel H5N3 strain and the H5N2 strain, with Japan reporting another H5N8 outbreak and agriculture departments in the United States and Nigeria reporting H5 detections.
Israel outbreak details
Israel’s agriculture ministry said tests have confirmed H5N1 as the cause of an outbreak at a turkey farm in Haifa, the largest city in the northern part of the country, according to a Jan 18 report to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). The event began on Jan 14 at a fattening facility, with deaths occurring in 5 of the farm’s 13 pens. Of 141,000 susceptible birds, the illness sickened 30,000 of them, killing 15,000.
The remaining turkeys were culled to curb the spread of the virus, and the report said backyard birds in the village will also be killed.
So far no illnesses have been seen at a farm housing 61,000 5-week-old turkeys that is located 350 meters from the outbreak location. No other commercial flocks are within the 3-kilometer radius of the affected farm.
Veterinary authorities reported that the area where the outbreak occurred has a number of ponds where waterfowl spend the winter and that two earlier H5N1 occurred not far from the turkey farm—one at a kindergarten minizoo in December 2007 and one in a commercial flock in January 2010.
Taiwan finds more H3N2, H5N2
Meanwhile, Taiwan’s agriculture council yesterday fleshed out more information about outbreaks involving what has been described as a new strain of highly pathogenic H3N2. In a report to the OIE it said the virus was detected at 13 goose farms and one duck slaughtering facility in Pingtung County after an abnormal number of deaths were noted at the 14 locations, which are at the southern tip of the island.
Of 43,236 susceptible birds, the virus killed 17,819, with the remaining ones to be culled. Authorities have imposed movement restrictions in the outbreak zones and will boost surveillance at surrounding poultry farms over the next 3 months.
Taiwanese veterinary officials said last week that the H3N2 virus appears to be a new recombination, according to a China News Agency (CNA) story discussed in a Jan 16 CIDRAP News story. An expert quoted in the story said the H5 (hemagglutinin) component is 99% similar to that of a South Korean virus, while the N3 (neuraminidase) component is 98% similar to that of a 2011 H1N3 virus from Thailand, an H2N3 strain found in Mongolian mallards in 2010, and an H5N3 strain found in wild ducks in Taiwan in 2013.
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