US reports first outbreak of H5N9 bird flu in poultry

PARIS (Reuters) - The United States reported its first outbreak of H5N9 bird flu in birds at a duck farm in California, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Monday. U.S. officials also detected the more common H5N1 strain on the same farm in Merced County, California, they said in a report to Paris-based WOAH, adding that the farm's nearly 119,000 birds had died as of Dec. 2. Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), commonly called bird flu, has spread across the world in recent years, leading to the culling of hundreds of millions of birds. It has also spread to dozens of mammal species, including dairy cows in the US, and killed one person in Louisiana. The strain that caused the most damage in recent years was H5N1. H5N9 is rarer. "This is the first confirmed case of HPAI H5N9 in poultry in the United States," the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in the ...