LANSING, MI While the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD) has not reported any new cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) in domestic poultry flocks since March 2023, MDARD continues to receive and investigate calls regarding sick domestic birds, and the virus is still being detected across the nation. These detections coupled with the fall migration of wild birds means it is necessary to continue following precautionary measures to protect domestic flocks and keep birds healthy.

Test results confirm H5N1; officials urge beachgoers to avoid contact with wildlife.

Excerpt:

Since the outbreak, Wadars said its staff have been working closely with Defra and specialist contractors in order to put in place the ‘rigorous programme of cleansing and disinfection’ that is ‘necessary to eliminate this disease’.

"Due to the intricacies of the cleansing programme and the highly infectious nature of the disease, the painstaking work could take up to three months to complete at a likely cost of around £25,000,” a spokesperson for the charity said.

‘Throughout the crisis’, the wildlife helpline and mobile wildlife rescue service has continued to operate and is on track to have responded to more than 1,400 calls for help from members of the public by the end of the year.

Wadars has also continued to find forever homes for a range of companion animals, which were not affected by the outbreak.

A bird flu outbreak around Fort Flagler State Park near Port Townsend may be spreading to mammals, according to the state Department of Health.

As of last week, an outbreak of a deadly strain of the avian influenza had likely killed 1,700 gulls and Caspian terns on Rat Island – a small wildlife preserve near the state park, and its adjacent shores. The island is currently closed due to the outbreak.

The Department of Health said Friday that preliminary results show three harbor seals in the area have likely been infected with the disease, though confirmation testing is still pending.

Abstract:

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A/H5N1 viruses (lineage 2.3.4.4b) are rapidly invading the Americas, threatening wildlife, poultry, and potentially evolving into the next global pandemic. In November 2022 HPAI arrived in Peru, triggering massive pelican and sea lion die-offs. We report genomic characterization of HPAI/H5N1 in five species of marine mammals and seabirds (dolphins, sea lions, sanderlings, pelicans and cormorants). Peruvian viruses belong to lineage 2.3.4.4b, but they are 4:4 reassortants where 4 genomic segments (PA, HA, NA and MP) position within the Eurasian lineage that initially entered North America from Eurasia, while the other 4 genomic segments (PB2, PB1, NP and NS) position within the American lineage (clade C) that circulated in North America. These viruses are rapidly accruing mutations, including mutations of concern, that warrant further examination and highlight an urgent need for active local surveillance to manage outbreaks and limit spillover into other species, including humans.

Preparations are needed for future pandemics, a public health expert has said, amid concerns about the “signals” from bird flu.

Professor Devi Sridhar of Edinburgh University, who advised the Scottish Government during the coronavirus outbreak, said action was needed to avoid a repeat of that, describing it as a “tragedy for lives lost but also the restrictions put in place”.

Large numbers of sea lions have been found dead along the Argentinian coast as a result of avian influenza, or bird flu.

This most recent influx of dead sea lions marks another swath of marine mammals dying from the viral infection across South America. The Patagonian environmental authority said in a statement that 50 sea lions have been found dead so far with symptoms matching bird flu.

This is a VERY long report, but it's one of the most comprehensive summaries of H5N1 I've seen so far.

Abstract: Between 29 April and 23 June 2023, highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) A(H5N1) virus (clade 2.3.4.4b) outbreaks were reported in domestic (98) and wild (634) birds across 25 countries in Europe. A cluster of outbreaks in mulard ducks for foie gras production was concentrated in Southwest France, whereas the overall A(H5N1) situation in poultry in Europe and worldwide has eased. In wild birds, black-headed gulls and several new seabird species, mostly gulls and terns (e.g. sandwich terns), were heavily affected, with increased mortality being observed in both adults and juveniles after hatching. Compared to the same period last year, dead seabirds have been increasingly found inland and not only along European coastlines. As regards mammals, A(H5N1) virus was identified in 24 domestic cats and one caracal in Poland between 10 and 30 June 2023. Affected animals showed neurological and respiratory signs, sometimes mortality, and were widely scattered across nine voivodeships in the country. All cases are genetically closely related and identified viruses cluster with viruses detected in poultry (since October 2022, but now only sporadic) and wild birds (December 2022–January 2023) in the past. Uncertainties still exist around their possible source of infection, with no feline-to-feline or feline-to- human transmission reported so far. Since 10 May 2023 and as of 4 July 2023, two A(H5N1) clade 2.3.4.4b virus detections in humans were reported from the United Kingdom, and two A(H9N2) and one A(H5N6) human infections in China. In addition, one person infected with A(H3N8) in China has died. The risk of infection with currently circulating avian H5 influenza viruses of clade 2.3.4.4b in Europe remains low for the general population in the EU/EEA, low to moderate for occupationally or otherwise exposed people to infected birds or mammals (wild or domesticated).

...But when she and her colleagues went to a farm housing foxes and mink last week, the shrieking of the birds that normally surround the barns was gone, so thinned out were their flocks. Dead gulls littered the ground. The usual barking from the foxes was also missing.

“They were in such a bad condition,” Sironen said about the foxes she saw. She said she walked through two shelters, with some 100 meters of cages on both sides. Only a few had a healthy animal left. “Everything else was either dead or dying.”

The research team, decked out in full PPE, was witnessing the toll of the spread of a highly pathogenic avian influenza, H5N1, which has reached nearly every corner of the globe in recent years and decimated untold millions of birds, domestic and wild. But the virus hasn’t been restricted to birds. It is now causing outbreaks among mammals at a scale previously unseen, including in the past month at a number of Finnish fur farms, home to mink, foxes, and raccoon dogs.

Although COVID-19 is giving us a temporary respite, influenza in humans and animals remains a serious threat. Its deadly H5N1 strain is spreading geographically and in more species of mammals, making the emergence of a pandemic strain more likely. We need to prepare.

The Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has confirmed the positive results for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) or bird flu.

A DAERA spokesperson said: "HPAI has now also been detected in two fox cubs along with wild birds in the Portrush area. While this is the first time mammals have been confirmed as having influenza of an avian strain in Northern Ireland, it is not unexpected. There have been findings of AI in mammals over recent months across Europe, Great Britain, and the Republic of Ireland."

Avian influenza has been identified in a New York City live bird market, the nation’s first outbreak in domestic poultry since May.

Some 660 birds were at the Brooklyn market, according to USDA.

All 12 species at the market, including guineas, Muscovy ducks, silkies and red fowl, tested positive for avian influenza. Chukars did not have an H5 strain of the pathogen, the Pennsylvania Ag Department told industry stakeholders.

(Article continues.)

Excerpt:

This spring, Runstadler and colleagues published a study in Emerging Infectious Diseases reporting H5N1 virus spillover into New England harbor and gray seals found stranded off the coast of Maine in June and July of 2022. The data did not support seal-to-seal transmission as the main route of infection, and Runstadler and his coauthors concluded that the seals were likely infected “through environmental transmission of shed virus.”

More recently, Peru reported nearly 3500 dead sea lions affected by avian influenza off the country’s coast this March. And in May, Chile reported the deaths of 9420 marine mammals infected with the virus, including more than 8000 sea lions and more than 1000 Humboldt penguins.

“For the most part, I think this is still bird to mammal [transmission], but it is very difficult to discern in the short-term,” Runstadler wrote in his email. “The number of different marine mammal infections is cause for concern,” he added, “and certainly if we detected sustained die-off or transmission in these hosts, it would be of greater concern.”

Finland's Food Authority today reported H5N1 on two more fur farms, both housing foxes, as Norway and Germany reported virus detections in mammals.

The two new fur farm outbreaks occurred in earlier-affected areas and raise the number of outbreaks to 14. One of the new detections was at a facility that raises blue foxes, and the other was as a farm housing blue fox and cross fox, a variant of red fox that has a black stripe running down the back.

Elsewhere, Norway reported the virus in a red fox pup found dead in late June under a house in the city of Tromso in the northern part of the country, according to a notification from the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH).

In Germany, government officials from Schleswig-Holstein state today reported said tests on a seal found dead at a seal station in the Wadden Sea were positive for H5N1, according to a statement translated and posted by Avian Flu Diary, an infectious disease news blog. The testing was conducted by the Friedrich Loeffler Institute. Schleswig-Holstein state is located in far northern Germany.

(Article continues.)

July 2023 (PAHO/WHO)—In January this year, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned about outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in birds in countries of the Americas. For the first time, a human case of avian influenza A (H5N1) was also confirmed in a Latin American country. Since then, 16 countries have reported cases in birds and other animals and, until the first week of July 2023, two countries have confirmed human infections.

A cat shelter in South Korea has been put under quarantine after two of the felines tested positive for H5N1 bird flu in the capital city of Seoul.

The South Korean Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said in a statement on Tuesday that this was the first time that this bird flu had been detected in cats in the country since 2016, as reported by Reuters.

The positive-testing cats were two of 38 cats that had recently died at the same shelter. Workers at the shelter are being monitored, although none are exhibiting symptoms of the condition.

Outbreaks of H5N1 influenza among cats and farmed mink are stoking fears about a human pandemic. But scientists increasingly understand what a pandemic flu virus might look like, aiding efforts to keep us safe.

Translated excerpt:

It has been confirmed that 38 cats have been killed in a group due to bird influenza in Korea.

It is the first time in Korea that a cat has been collectively decommissioned by avian influenza, and it is the second time in the world.

40 cats were being protected at a private cat shelter in Seoul, and from the 24th of last month, 38 cats began to die from high fever and anorexia, and 38 cats died in a month.

Professor Dae-seop Song's research team from the Department of Investigating at Seoul National University investigated and it was confirmed to be H5N1 avian influenza.

Millions of wild birds may have died from bird flu globally in the latest outbreak, researchers have said, as the viral disease ravages South America, with 200,000 deaths recorded in Peru alone.

The highly infectious variant of H5N1, which gained momentum in the winter of 2021, caused Europe’s worst bird flu outbreak before spreading globally. The disease reached South America in November 2022, and has now been reported on every continent except Oceania and Antarctica.

...As recently as October 2022, there were disturbing reports of sustained transmission of the panzootic, highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) at a Spanish mink farm (11). At least one mammalian adaptation in the virus polymerase emerged in the mink during this outbreak; in all likelihood, we narrowly escaped a larger disaster, as the incident appears to have been contained.

In the last two years, more than half a billion birds have died globally. The cause isn’t deforestation or climate change or the destruction of grasslands — all of which are contributing to the precipitous decline of wild birds — but avian influenza, i.e., bird flu.

(Article continues.)

Now, hundreds more sea birds thought to have been infected with avian flu have been found washed up on British beaches as the virus continues to sweep through Europe.

Our chief correspondent Alex Thomson has been to Coquet Island, off Northumberland and a warning, his report contains images of dead and dying birds.

(Video is on linked page)

£1.5 million government funding will support research into avian influenza outbreaks

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus continues to circulate extensively among seabirds in Europe causing high mortality, while the overall situation in poultry has eased. Epidemiological investigations of an outbreak in cats in Poland are ongoing. The risk to the general public remains low, according to the latest report on avian influenza by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), and the EU reference laboratory (EURL).

(Article continues.)

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is working with the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the public health agencies of the 4 nations to monitor the risk to human health of avian influenza (influenza A H5N1) in England. This briefing is produced to share data useful to other public health investigators and academic partners undertaking related work. It includes early evidence and preliminary analyses which may be subject to change.