Nigeria - Credit Wikipedia
#14,598
On Thanksgiving morning I blogged on an OIE report on the 1st recorded case of HPAI H5N6 in Nigeria. Less than 24 hours later I saw the same story being widely reported as LPAI (low path), and quickly rechecked the OIE report, and found to my dismay my first blog post was in error.
Shaking my head, and wondering how I could have misread the report that badly, I removed that post and posted the following retraction/apology at the bottom of the following blog.
Editor's Note: My previous blog post, on the OIE Notification of H5N6 in Nigeria mistakenly stated that it was an HPAI Strain. Obviously I need better reading glasses, as it was LPAI.Mistakes happen, and slightly chagrined, I polished by reading glasses and moved on.
Since it was published on Thanksgiving morning, and had received very few views, I removed it and the tweet announcing it to avoid any further confusion. My apologies for the error.
But today I discovered that the OIE had removed the original (HPAI) report (hours after I posted it), and quietly replaced it with an LPAI version. This revelation comes from a 2nd revision to the original report - dated December 23rd -that changes the findings back to being HPAI H5N6.
This time, they included a data trail, writing:
The original report submitted on 27 November 2019 for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) with OIE reference number 32493 was deleted and replaced with the report number 32513 for low pathogenic avian influenza on 29 November 2019. The latter report and correspondent follow-up report No. 32654 were subsequently deleted on the 20 December 2019 and replaced by the current immediate notification. These changes were done due to the intravenous pathogenicity index (IVPI) laboratory analysis which confirmed the H5N6 as highly pathogenic avian influenza.Now I know how Ingrid Bergman felt in Gaslight. But I digress. The revised OIE report follows, after which I'll have a postscript.
As I pointed out in my original blog post, this finding most likely heralds the arrival of the 2017 European H5N6 reassortment from HPAI H5N8, which sparked a handful of outbreaks in poultry and wild birds primarily over the winter of 2017-2018.
A second possibility is this virus could stem from a more recent local reassortment between already present H5N8 (or H5N1) and another LPAI N6 virus.While a long shot, another possibility is that is that the Asian (and more dangerous) HPAI H5N6 virus has finally managed to make its way - via migratory birds - from China to Africa. Previously, both H5N1 and H5N8 have managed this feat, but H5N6 has almost exclusively been confined to China and southeast Asia (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia).
However, a year ago Asian HPAI H5N6 was reported in Western Russia, a jump of more than 5000 km from its regular grounds, and inside a migratory flyway that could conceivable deliver it to West Africa (see EID Journal: Genetic Characterization of Avian Influenza A(H5N6) Virus Clade 2.3.4.4, Russia, 2018).
Hopefully we'll get a genetic characterization of this HPAI H5N6 virus that will answer these questions sooner rather than later, as it could greatly influence the threat assessment of this latest finding.
