H5N1 in Poland Chicken Farm
Recombinomics Commentary
December 8, 2007
A zone of safety of 10 km around this new hearth was founded by the authorities, indicated the spokesman of the prefect Maciej Wiewior. According to station private Radio operator Z, some 200 chickens died in a farm close of Zuromin, touched by potentially dangerous virus H5N1 for the man.
The above translation describes a fourth poultry outbreak in Poland. The first three were close together and resulted in infected meat distributed to retail meat and restaurant establishments. The new location (see satellite map) is about 50 km from the earlier outbreaks.
It is likely that this new outbreak is also linked to migratory birds. Recently the sequence of H5N1 from a whooper swan in Krasnodar was released. It was virtually identical to the sequence of H5N1 from a chicken on an infected farm. Both sequences traced back to a wild bird outbreak in Mongolia at Uva Lake. Similar sequences were in wild birds in Germany, the Czech Republic, and France over the summer. Recently, similar sequences were found in turkey outbreaks in England. It is likely that similar sequences will also be found in the recent outbreaks in Romania.
The multiple recent infections in Krasnodar, England, Romania, and Poland suggest H5N1 is silently circulating in wild birds in the region. So far only Krasnodar has isolates the H5N1 from wild birds, but the wild bird sequences that trace back to Uva Lake appear to be widespread in Europe.
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