H5N1 Confirmed in Southern Tibet
Recombinomics Commentary 13:34
January 29, 2008
A total of 1,000 poultry have died of the disease in Gonggan county since Jan. 25, while another 13,080 have been culled, the Ministry of Agriculture
The outbreak had been suspected as of January 25, but only confirmed by the laboratory on Tuesday, it said.
Experts have been dispatched to the county, which lies about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Lhasa.
The above comments describe a confirmed H5N1 outbreak in southern Tibet, just north of India and Bangladesh (see satellite map here and here). The movement of wild birds from Siberia, Mongolia, and China into northern India is well documented. Thus, the presence of H5N1 just north of India is not a surprise.
Sequences from the 2006 outbreak in India have been published, and the sequences were the Qinghai strain (clade 2.2.3), which was first reported at Qinghai Lake in central China in the spring of 2005 and in Qinghia province in the spring of 2006. In addition, the Uva Lake strain, a variant of clade 2.2.3 was reported at Uva Lake, the largest lake in Mongolia.
The arrival of these birds in India and Bangladesh is not a surprise.
Sequence data from the recent outbreaks in India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan would be useful.
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