#13,304
Two months ago (March 5th) Bulgaria reported an HPAI H5N8 outbreak (listed as simply HPAI H5 in the official OIE report) at a large chicken farm in General Toshevo, very close to the Romanian border.
A month later, they reported another H5N8 outbreak in the Yombol District, again only identified as HPAI H5 by the OIE.Since then, the Bulgarian Agency For Food Safety - which reported these first two outbreaks - has been silent on the issue, but the FAO has posted 4 new outbreaks in the past couple days, involving more than 8500 birds.
02/05/2018: Bulgaria - Influenza - Avian
Confirmed Influenza - Avian in Plovdiv, for domestic birds (duck)
02/05/2018: Bulgaria - Influenza - Avian
Confirmed Influenza - Avian in Plovdiv, for domestic birds (duck)
02/05/2018: Bulgaria - Influenza - Avian
Confirmed Influenza - Avian in Plovdiv, for domestic birds (duck)
02/05/2018: Bulgaria - Influenza - Avian
Confirmed Influenza - Avian in Plovdiv, for domestic birds (duck)
While H5N8 did not make anywhere near the impact this past winter in Europe as it did the year before, it continues to circulate in Africa, the Middle East, and as the following excerpt from the most recent DEFRA report indicates, it continues to make small inroads into parts of south-eastern Europe.
H5N8 in Europe
H5N8 is still present in parts of south-eastern Europe. On 2 March, a H5 (N type awaited) HPAI was reported on a poultry farm in Bulgaria. This follows on from belated reports of H5N8 outbreaks in November 2017. Italy reported three outbreaks of H5N8 in poultry farms in the north in early March in similar areas to previous recent cases. The same or similar virus appears to have been maintained at low level in this area with sporadic outbreaks since 2017.While summer generally provides a respite in avian flu outbreaks - at least in temperate regions of the world - last summer's persistence of H5N8 in Italy is a reminder that avian flu doesn't always follow the rules.
