Potential risk of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) spreading through wild water bird migration

Animal Production and Health Division

Potential risk of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) spreading through wild water bird migration

Updated version

Year of publication 2005

Pages 5p.

Author Animal Production and Health Division

Product type Book (series)

Series title EMPRES Watch

Edition 1

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) There is a potential that Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) subtype H5N1 might be carried along migration routes of wild water birds to densely populated areas in the south Asian subcontinent and along migratory flyways to Europe. Recent outbreaks of HPAI in Russia and Kazakhstan (August, 2005) attest to this fact. Looking at the major bird migration routes (Fig. 1), the HPAI H5N1 virus could possibly spread from Siberia to the Caspian and Black Sea areas in the foreseeable future. Some w ild water birds are nesting in the newly AI affected areas in Novosibirsk and Altai in Russia and will migrate to the above-mentioned areas for winter or stop-over on their way to Africa and Europe. Bird migration routes run across Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine and some Mediterranean countries, where bird flu outbreaks are a possibility. Also India and Bangladesh, which currently seem to be uninfected, are at risk because both areas harbour large numbers of domestic duck and the count ries are situated along one of the major migratory routes. They have the potential to become new large endemic foci of HPAI infection. Additionally, spring migration of 2006 may result in the spread of HPAI H5N1 virus across European Russia, because birds migrating from Europe and European Russia and Siberia have common wintering areas in Southwest Asia.

Language English

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