Photo Credit – FAO
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With the recent emergence of H7N9 and H10N8, there is a tendency to think of avian H5N1 as being so 2012, but it continues to circulate in poultry and wild birds in Asia and the Middle East, occasionally jumps to humans, and remains on the short list of novel flu viruses with genuine pandemic potential.
Vietnam, the world’s hotspot for human H5N1 cases a decade ago - through aggressive culling, poultry vaccination, and public education – by 2006 had become the `poster child’ for successful bird flu eradication and containment. They went from seeing 90 human cases in 2004-5 to seeing none in 2006.
Since then, Vietnam has managed to keep human cases down to the low-to-middle single digits each year.
But scattered poultry outbreaks continued through the second half of the last decade, and in 2010 a new clade (2.3.2.1) emerged that was resistant to the existing poultry vaccine (see FAO Warns On Bird Flu) sparking a new round of large outbreaks.
Between H5N1 outbreaks, and the H7N9 virus moving closer to Vietnam’s northern border, concerns over bird flu in Vietnam have escalated in recent months.
Today Xinhua News is reporting that 8 Vietnamese provinces are experiencing H5N1 outbreaks in poultry, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), is calling for an immediate, and robust response to the threat.
Vietnamese gov't urges drastic measures as avian flu breaks out in eight provinces
English.news.cn 2014-02-15 18:23:45
HANOI, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam has reported outbreaks of A/ H5N1 avian flu in eight provinces across the country, according to the website of the Department of Animal Health under Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) on Saturday.
Specifically, avian flu outbreaks have occurred in Nam Dinh province in northern Vietnam, and provinces including Ca Mau, Dak Lak, Khanh Hoa, Kon Tum, Long An, Quang Ngai and Tay Ninh in central and southern region.
Since the end of the Lunar New Year Festival, authorities in Vietnam's central provinces have culled as many as 30,000 infected poultries. Quang Ngai province is currently being a hotspot of the epidemic with more than 5,000 poultries culled so far.
Over 2,500 poultries in southern Long An province were also disposed, said the department.
Meanwhile, other provinces are also being put on high alert over the risks of avian flu outbreak, as some 4 million poultries in Quang Nam province have not been vaccinated against the disease yet, according to Quang Nam Veterinary Department.
In less than three weeks, Vietnamese Prime Minister (PM) has urgently issued two dispatches to authorities at all levels from ministries to sectors and localities over the spread of the disease.
Accordingly, in the latest message sent earlier on Friday, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung urged the establishment of inspection teams to promote anti-bird flu efforts at localities, especially those vulnerable to the epidemic.
The dispatch requested the minister of MARD, who is also the head of the National Steering Committee for Bird Flu Prevention and Control, to take immediate action to prevent the transfer of avian flu to human.
Despite ongoing, albeit, limited numbers of human infections, this virus still has a hard time infecting humans. It is adapted to avian physiology – not human - and must mutate further if it is to become an imminent public health threat.
But with 20+ clades of the virus now circulating, and numerous opportunities to expose and infect other hosts (human, swine, mammal, and avian), the virus may yet succeed.
The current WHO phase of pandemic alert for avian influenza A(H5N1) is: ALERT
Alert phase: This is the phase when influenza caused by a new subtype1 has been identified in humans. Increased vigilance and careful risk assessment, at local, national and global levels, are characteristic of this phase. If the risk assessments indicate that the new virus is not developing into a pandemic strain, a de-escalation of activities towards those in the interpandemic phase may occur.
Which is why – while we currently watch H7N9 with the most concern - the world remains in pre-pandemic ALERT phase on the H5N1 virus as well.
(Editor’s note: My thanks to Eric Starbuck for reminding me I’d used the old WHO Alert Phase graphic (now corrected) - a sure sign of caffeine deficiency).
