# 8185
The surprise announcement yesterday that South Korea’s first HPAI (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) outbreak in poultry in over two years came not from the infamous H5N1 virus, but from a little known cousin called H5N8, is a reminder how how quickly flu strains can evolve and emerge.
Although primarily known as a low pathogenic avian virus (see CIDRAP 2008 Low-pathogenic avian flu hits Idaho game farm), at least one detection of H5N8 in an HPAI form was recorded in China in 2009-10 (see Characterization of three H5N5 and one H5N8 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses in China).
In 2011, an H5N1 outbreak in South Korea resulted in the culling of more than 5.5 million birds across 249 farms, causing millions of dollars in economic losses.
Accordingly, authorities are clamping down quickly on the movement of poultry in the affected areas, imposing stiff penalties for anyone found violating these orders.
Jeollanam-North, Guangzhou movement of poultry, including the stop command
The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry, Livestock and Jeonbuk Jeonnam and Gwangju Metropolitan City in the area of poultry and livestock, the relevant date for the vehicle fell commands to stop moving.
Period of temporary stop moving today from 0:00 tomorrow (20th) at midnight 48 hours.
Outside this period, exports are prohibited in poultry farms, livestock and related workers away from the current location of vehicles will not be able to move.
Agri-food section to spread AI vehicles that are likely to restrict the movement of people from one state to conduct a powerful disinfection and quarantine naeryeotdago move said stop command.
Go to this temporary emergency stop command, the AI behavior to be activated in accordance with the instructions, violating the first time less than one year imprisonment or a fine, you will receive more than five million won.
The fine of 5 million won works out to be about $4710.00 US.
Today – in what may end up being a related story - the Korean Herald is reporting on the deaths of roughly 1,000 ducks in a North Jeolla Province reservoir.
Authorities open probe into possible bird flu in the wild
Health authorities opened an investigation Saturday to determine what killed about 1,000 ducks in a southern county recently hit by an outbreak of avian influenza (AI).
The Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency found the flock of migratory birds dead in a reservoir in North Jeolla Province a day earlier and began an investigation to confirm a possible link to AI, according to the provincial government.
The investigation comes after bird flu was confirmed in thousands of ducks at a duck farm in Gochang, a nearby village in the same province.
And from KBS News, we get this report on a precautionary culling of 6,500 ducks at a duck farm near where the poultry outbreak has been reported (h/t Shiloh on FluTrackers).
Ducks at Farm Suspected of Being Infected with AI to be Culled
[2014-01-18, 12:33:09]
North Jeolla Province quarantine officials say they decided to cull some 65-hundred ducks at a farm in Buan as a precautionary measure after a suspected case of bird flu was reported there.
The precautionary measure comes after a duck farm in Gochang was confirmed to have been infected by a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza (AI).
Quarantine officials also decided to cull some 40-thousand chickens at a poultry farm near the Gochang duck farm and destroy 890-thousand duck eggs at two hatcheries located within a three kilometer radius from the infected duck farm.
North Jeolla Province plans to boost quarantine efforts and restrict the movement of poultry around the Gochang farm and the Buan farm.
Right now there is a lot we don’t know about this upstart avian virus, other than it is a relative of the H5N1 virus, and is highly pathogenic in poultry. Although its ability to infect humans is unknown, the same sorts of precautions are being used to protect the cullers as we see with the H5N1 virus.
While the appearance of a new, highly pathogenic H5 avian virus is unusual, it isn’t without precedent.
Highly pathogenic H5N1 was detected for the first time in Scotland in 1959 (A/chicken/Scotland/59). A much different Asian strain of HPAI H5N1 emerged in the mid 1990s in Asia, and eventually evolved into the H5N1 strain(s) we know today.
And in 2011, we learned of the discovery of a new HPAI H5N5 virus in China (see EID journal article below)..
It is likely that influenza reassortments like these happen fairly often, but outside the view of scientists. Most are viral flashes in the pan; evolutionary misfits that are unable to compete with more biologically fit flu viruses, and so they die out and we never hear about them.
From the June 2011 EID Journal we get this dispatch.
Novel Reassortant Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (H5N5) Viruses in Domestic Ducks, China
Min Gu, Wenbo Liu, Yongzhong Cao, Daxin Peng, Xiaobo Wang, Hongquan Wan, Guo Zhao, Quangang Xu, Wei Zhang, Qingqing Song, Yanfang Li, and Xiufan Liu
Abstract
In China, domestic ducks and wild birds often share the same water, in which influenza viruses replicate preferentially. Isolation of 2 novel reassortant highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N5) viruses from apparently healthy domestic ducks highlights the role of these ducks as reassortment vessels. Such new subtypes of influenza viruses may pose a pandemic threat.
In the discussion, the authors offer this cautionary commentary:
Ducks have been considered "Trojan horses" for influenza (H5N1) because of their pivotal role in virus propagation and evolution (11–13).
In our study, the 2 reassortant influenza viruses (008 [H5N5] and 031 [H5N5]) and their 3 possible parent viruses (108 [H5N1], 909 [H5N1], and 013 [H6N5]) were all isolated from apparently healthy domestic ducks.
We speculate that domestic ducks may serve as reassortant vessels for creating new subtypes of influenza viruses. In view of the practice of raising ducks in a free-range system, these novel strains could be transmitted to other domestic poultry and even humans.
There is evidence that these subtype H5N5 viruses have been transmitted to terrestrial poultry (Zhao et al., unpub. data). Thus, the role of domestic ducks in the influenza virus ecosystem should not be neglected.
Systematic surveillance should be instituted to identify emerging HPAI (H5N5) viruses and to reduce their potential threat to animal and human health.
Whether or not H5N8 will ever pose a significant threat to public health is unknown right now. It may only impact poultry and wild birds, or it may fade away over time. We simply don’t know what the future holds for this virus.
But the emergence of this new strain is a reminder that these evolutionary processes continues all over the world, and that while we watch H5N1 or H7N9 intently, looking for signs of adaptation to humans, we could easily be blindsided by a virus coming out of left field.
Which, after all, is pretty much what happened in 2009 with the emergence of a `swine-origin’ H1N1 virus, which in 2008 few scientists would have pegged as having pandemic potential.
