1st U.S. case of H5N9 bird flu reported on California duck farm

The United States has reported its first outbreak of H5N9 bird flu in poultry on a duck farm in California, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Monday.

U.S. authorities 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 almost 119,000 birds on the farm had been killed by Dec. 2.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), commonly called bird flu, has spread around the globe in recent years, leading to the culling of hundreds of millions of poultry. It also spread to dozens of mammal species, including dairy cows in the U.S. and killed a person in Louisiana.

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The strain that has caused most damage in recent years has been 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 report to the WOAH.

“The USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), in conjunction with State Animal Health and Wildlife Officials, are conducting comprehensive epidemiological investigations and enhanced surveillance in response to the HPAI related events,” it added.