Commentary
H5N1 Endemic in Egypt
Recombinomics Commentary 22:19
July 7, 2008
The event is unlikely to be contained and is now considered to be endemic. No more follow-up reports will be made, but instead, information about this disease will be included in the future six-monthly reports.
The above comments from the OIE final report from Egypt declare H5N1 endemic. Consequently, updates will be submitted at six month intervals. The declaration is not a surprise. At the end of 2007 and beginning of 2008, Egypt reported widespread outbreaks in spite of an extensive vaccine campaign. Many of the H5N1 outbreaks were in vaccinated flocks, and the H5N1 recovered in Egypt as well as Israel had a large number of non-synonymous changes.
The latest final report describes 19 new outbreaks between February 7 and June 14, which were H5N1 positive based on testing by the Central Laboratory for Veterinary Quality Control on Poultry Production (NLQP) using the real-time PCR. These outbreaks included vaccinated birds, backyard holdings, commercial farms, and wet markets.
Other countries, such as Indonesia have also declared H5N1 endemic. However, Indonesia has not filed an OIE report on H5N1 since September 26, 2006, when H5N1 was characterized as endemic.
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