Commentary
H5N1
On Hong Kong Farm
Recombinomics Commentary
11:55
December 9, 2008
The above comments strongly suggest that the confirmed H5 on the Yuen Long farm in Hong Kong (see updated satellite map) will be H5N1. Hong Kong has strict control measures which keep H5N1 out of farms, and this is first case in six years.
However, H5N1 is detected in wild birds in Hong Kong at this time of year. In past years bird conservation groups have tried to link the annual outbreaks to religious ceremony release of birds, but in the past few years the outbreaks have been too early in the season to link to religious groups (and prior linkages were simply based on pure speculation, although the speculation was widely distributed by ProMED).
Recently, sequences from last years outbreak were released. The H5N1 was the Fujian strain (clade 2.3), but some isolates were clade 2.3.4 while others had a clade 2.3.2 HA and clade 2.3.4 for other genes. This reassortant subsequently appeared in the spring of this year in whooper swans in northern Japan, as well as outbreaks in South Korea and southeastern Russia, firmly linking the Hong Kong outbreaks to migratory birds and defining transport along the East Asian flyway.
However, this season the H5N1 in Hong Kong could be clade 0, which was detected in a fecal sample at the Qinghai Lake Nature Reserve this summer.
Release of sequence data from the Hong Kong outbreak would be useful. India has also reported a massive outbreak in Assam, which ahs been attributed to wild birds, and that outbreak is also early in the season, which may be signaling continued record outbreaks as seen in India, Bangladesh, and South Korea in the 2007/2008 season.
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