China reports highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu on farms, says OIE

BEIJING/PARIS (Reuters) - China has reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu on a farm in the northwestern province of Qinghai, the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) said on Tuesday. citing a report from the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture. . It is the first case of the H5N1 flu strain to be reported on a Chinese poultry farm since 2014, according to a Reuters search of the Chinese Agriculture Ministry's OIE database of advisories. But the virus was reported this year in Nepal and Bhutan, both countries that share borders with northwestern China. The virus killed 1,050 broiler chickens out of a flock of 1,615 on a farm in the Haixi autonomous province of Mongolia and Tibet. The remaining birds were killed and disposed of, the ministry said. Some strains of the often lethal H5N1 virus can be transmitted to humans. The case is the sixth case of highly pathogenic bird flu reported by China this year, compared to just four cases reported to the OIE ...