Mexico reports H5N1 bird flu outbreak

Mexico City. – Mexico has reported its first outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza on a farm this season, the World Organization for Animal Health (WHOSA) reported on Thursday, a month after local authorities declared the country’s poultry areas free of the virus.

Governments and the poultry industry are concerned about the spread of the highly contagious virus, which has ravaged poultry farms around the world in recent years, disrupting supplies, driving up food prices and posing a risk of human-to-human transmission.

Citing a Mexican government report, Paris-based WHOA detailed that the outbreak detected in Sonora state resulted in the death of 15,000 laying hens in 90,000 chicken houses and the culling of the rest.

“According to passive epidemiological surveillance carried out by the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (Sader), the first outbreak of highly pathogenic H5 avian influenza of the season has been reported in a poultry production unit in the city of Cayemé, Sonora state,” he noted.

Mexico’s animal safety authorities confirmed the first case of H5N1 avian influenza infection in wild birds early last month, and announced on the same day that the country’s poultry farms had been cleared of the virus.

The Agriculture Department reported on Wednesday afternoon that transmission of H5N1 bird flu had been detected at a second commercial farm in this part of the country’s north, three kilometers from the first farm where the virus emerged. Approximately 90,000 birds have been confirmed to be “in decline”.

The local Directorate General of Animal Health (DGSA) declared a quarantine and began extermination, cleaning and disinfection work at the site, which contains 54,000 birds at the end of their production cycle.