# 6634
The pattern with the H5N1 virus has been that it declines during the warm summer months, only to return when cooler weather returns with the fall and winter.
This pattern is easily seen in the FAO chart below:
Although not the hotspot for bird flu like Indonesia, Egypt, or Bangladesh, the H5H1 virus has been making its presence known in Nepal each winter since it was first detected in January of 2009 (see Nepal: Concerns Rise Over More Poultry Deaths).
Located as it is between two nations with a long history of outbreaks of H5N1 (India and China), and separated by but a few kilometers from Bangladesh – another bird flu hotspot – it isn’t surprising that the bird flu virus has made its way to Nepal.
Ironically, Nepal filed a final bird flu report with the OIE just one week ago, six months after the end of their last outbreak. But with the return of cooler weather, H5N1 has once again emerged.
Today, we’ve a report in The Himalayan (h/t Giuseppe Michieli on FluTrackers), indicating a fresh outbreak of the virus, killing 1,200 chickens on a poultry farm in Bhaktapur, outside of the capital Kathmandu.
Bird flu confirmed in Bode farm
2012-10-15
ISHWOR K KHAIJU
BHAKTAPUR: At least 1,200 chickens have died of bird flu at a poultry farm in Bode-3 of Madhyapur Thimi in Bhaktapur till Monday noon.
Nepal’s Animal Health Directorate has declared the area a crisis zone, and for the next 90 days will conduct enhanced surveillance.
