# 8759
Six months ago a new strain of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) called H5N8 appeared in South Korea, and proceeded to spread rapidly across that nation’s poultry industry. While not showing any signs of infecting humans, this emerging strain has proved deadly to birds, and has even infected dogs (see Korea Finds More Dogs With H5N8 Antibodies).
Through a combination of massive culling, disinfection of farms and equipment, and the restriction on the movement of poultry, equipment, and personnel, by late spring this outbreak was believed brought under control.
South Korea was within days of declaring the outbreak officially over, when over the past week, three new outbreaks have been reported. A development all the more surprising because summer, traditionally, has been the least likely time to see HPAI outbreaks in Korea.
This from The Korea Times.
New bird flu case in Daegu fuels concerns for nationwide spread
By Kim Se-jeong
A new case of avian influenza has been found in Daegu, triggering fears that the disease may be spreading across the country, officials said Wednesday.
According to Daegu Metropolitan Government (DMG), the H5N8 virus was found in three chickens that recently died at a poultry farm in Okcheon.
"The presence of the highly pathogenic virus has been confirmed," said an official from DMG. Since late last month, 100 chickens and 94 geese have died on the farm.
This case follows two separate cases reported in Hoengseong, Gangwon Province last Saturday and in Muan, South Jeolla Province earlier this week.
The past sixteen months have been marked by the emergence of several new avian flu strains, including H7N9, H5N8, H6N1, H10N8, and H5N6. While we tend to think of these viruses each as a single entity, in truth, each comes in a variety of clades, with numerous variants within each clade, and all continue to evolve, mutate, and reassort over time.
In EID Journal: H7N9 As A Work In Progress, we learned that the H7N9 avian virus continues to reassort with local H9N2 viruses, making the H7N9 viruses that circulated in wave 2 genetically distinct from those that were seen during the 1st wave.
While in EID Journal: Describing 3 Distinct H5N8 Reassortants In Korea, we saw hints of the genetic diversity already present very early in the Korean outbreaks.
And just last week, in EID Journal: Mutations Of A(H10N8) Virus in Chicken Eggs and MDCK Cells we saw hints that this new virus ``might be undergoing rapid adaptation to mammals and developing antiviral drug resistance’.
Thus far, none of these viruses has demonstrated any overt signs of efficient adaptation to humans. The remain primarily adapted to avian physiology.
Yet all of them continue to circulate, adapt, and evolve.
So what we can say about them – and the risks they pose to public health – today, may well change tomorrow. So we watch these outbreaks with interest – not only because of the social and economic impact these poultry outbreaks may have – but also to look for any signs that `something’ has changed.
