Wild birds could be the cause of bird flu in China

Two outbreaks of H5N1 and H5N6 broke out earlier in February in China, raising alarms about the recklessness in bird flu prevention and control in the country.

China Daily reported that two bird flu cases in China's Hunan and Sichuan provinces were likely caused by wild birds , a spokesman for China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said.

On February 1, China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced the H5N1 strain of avian influenza outbreaks on a chicken farm in Shaoyang City, Hunan Province. The farm has a total of 7,850 chickens, of which 4,500 died from the flu. The city government destroyed a total of 17,828 children.

Meanwhile, on February 9, 1,840 birds out of 2,497 were infected with H5N6 and died on a farm in Sichuan. The rest is destroyed. These are the first H5N6 infections to be detected on a poultry farm after 4 cases were found in swans this year.

Two bird flu outbreaks occurred in early February in China.(Photo: Asianscientist).

"Two outbreaks occurred on two small farms. These places had 10,347 chickens and 6,340 chickens died of infection. Local authorities had to destroy 28,214 poultry after the outbreak," said Yang Zhenhai, who Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs spokesman said.

Reported no cases of bird flu in humans. All people in close contact with infected poultry are healthy and tested negative for the virus.

China made mandatory vaccination for H5 avian influenza in 2015 and H7 avian influenza in 2017. This has prevented and significantly reduced the rate of infection and death caused by avian influenza in humans. .

Mr. Yang also added that the rate of bird flu transmission from chickens to humans is very low, so that people can consume safely quarantined poultry products.

In 2019, China recorded 4 bird flu outbreaks.

• An outbreak of H5N6 avian influenza broke out in China
• H5N6 virus is spread from poultry to humans