China’s ‘best defence’ is poultry vaccine as bird flu spreads from Europe, Africa
- International research team led by University of Hong Kong finds epicentre for deadly H5N1 virus has shifted, carried across the world by wild birds
- With infections recorded across 5 continents, including Antarctica, penguins and marine and land-based mammals are ‘at risk’
The team, which included researchers in Australia, Egypt, France, the United Arab Emirates and the United States, found that recent outbreaks suggested the epicentre for the H5N1 virus had extended beyond Asia.
In a paper published by the peer-reviewed journal Nature, the researchers said the virus had also become more persistent in wild bird populations, driving the evolution and spread of new strains, putting marine and land mammals at risk across the world.
“Since November 2021, this H5N1 virus has caused unprecedented outbreaks in diverse wild bird species across five continents and a significant rise in incidental infections in wild carnivores, mink farms and marine mammals,” they said.
Lead author Vijaykrishna Dhanasekaran, who heads the HKU pathogen evolution lab, urged China to guard against strains of the virus arriving from Europe by keeping up its vaccination programme against bird flu infections among the country’s flocks.
“Especially since the emergence of H7N9 in 2013 … the control in China has become really good with mass application of H5 and H7 vaccines. That is one of the reasons the recent resurgence was not in China,” he said.