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H5N1 Confirmed in Azerbaijan
Recombinomics Commentary
February 10, 2006
The Health Ministry said Friday that a British laboratory has confirmed the presence of the H5N1 strain of avian flu in dead birds from Azerbaijan 's Caspian Sea coast.
The first case of mass deaths among birds was registered in the autumn in the Nakhichivan region, bordering Turkey . More deaths occurred in December and January, but health authorities insisted that the birds had not been infected with avian flu and said there was no cause for concern.
According to local media, within just two to four days at the beginning of this month, the carcasses of thousands of dead migratory birds were found floating along the sea coast near the northern Khachmas and Devechi districts. Mass bird deaths have also been registered in southern and western districts. The dead birds include crows and swans.
Samaya Mammadova, spokeswoman for the Health Ministry, said the Weybridge laboratory had confirmed the H5N1 strain in wild birds on the Absheron Peninsula , which includes the capital Baku and surrounding villages. It has not yet delivered a finding on samples taken from domestic poultry found dead in the southern Masalli district at the end of December and beginning of January.
About 200,000 migratory birds spend the winter in the environs of Baku, on the Caspian Sea shore, and Azerbaijan hosts up to 1.3 million water birds each winter, second only to Britain, said Elchin Sultanov, the head of Azerbaijan's Ornithological Society.
The above comments indicate H5N1 has been in Azerbaijan for some time, which is not surprising. H5N1 was reported in the Volga Delta at the northern end of the Caspian sea in August. In October, H5N1 was confirmed in western Turkey and the Danube Delta, but there were die-offs reported in eastern Turkey as well as northern Iran. Recent OIE reports by Turkey indicated they detected H5N1 in eastern Turkey in mid November and have been reporting outbreaks including more this month (see map).
Recently H5N1has been reported in Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Greece, which may be linked to birds moving further south and similar events in Azerbaijan may have caused the deaths this month.
However, H5N1 in Nigeria has been killing birds in northern Nigeria since mid-January and the genetic signatures match the Qinghai strain, which has been carried by migratory birds into Eastern Europe, Turkey, and the Middle East.
The latest reports further substantiate the under reporting of H5N1 in the area, and raise significant credibility issues in adjacent countries in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa which have not yet filed OIE reports on H5N1.
WHO comments on a lack of understanding of H5N1 introduction to Nigeria are of great concern, as is the lack of enforcement or investigations regarding of mandatory OIE reporting of H5N1.
The overlap of three major migratory bird flight paths in western Africa is cause for additional concern as H5N1 prepares to move into new areas of Western Europe and North America, leading to new recombinations and new problems.
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