15.11.2014

Outbreaks of H5N6 avian influenza  in Asian poultry may be an emerging public health threat (FAO). The recently emerged Asian H5N6 strain is a highly pathogenic AI virus, which causes severe clinical signs in poultry and associated mortality. The first poultry outbreak caused by H5N6 was reported in Nanchong City, Sichuan Province, China, on 4 May 2014. Genetic sequences demonstrate that the virus was already present in China several months prior to notification, though no outbreak was officially reported; the virus had been isolated from an environmental sample collected on 20 December 2013 in a live poultry market in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province and from a duck in Guangdong Province in March 2014. Shortly after, Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Viet Nam both reported two and seven H5N6 poultry outbreaks, respectively, with initial outbreak observation in March 2014 in Lao People’s Democratic Republic and in April 2014 in Viet Nam. Only one human H5N6 infection has been detected to date. This case, a 49-year-old male farmer from Sichuan Province, China, associated to the first poultry outbreak, was reported on 6 May 2014 and died from severe pneumonia a few days after  hospitalization. Close contacts of the patient were placed under medical observation without additional human cases detected. Given the current evidence, and the fact that despite the virus being detected in poultry across a fairly widespread geographical area in eastern Asia, only one human case was reported, WHO considers that H5N6 is not likely to be easily transmissible from birds to humans. H5N6 remains a public health threat, which requires close monitoring in the same way as for H5N1 HPAI and H7N9.