16.11.2014

Dutch authorities said they had found the H5N8 strain of avian influenza at a poultry farm in the central Netherlands, the same highly contagious strain as found this month in Germany and which has prompted massive poultry culls in South Korea. 150,000 chickens, commercial laying hens,were culled at the farm in the village of Hekendorp (Utrecht province). There are some 95 million chickens kept on Dutch poultry farms and egg exports totalled some 10.6 billion euros ($13.2 billion) in 2011.

Outbreaks caused by highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N8) viruses have been reported from south-east Asia
since 2010. The A(H5N8) virus was first detected in domestic ducks in China during routine surveillance activities at a live poultry market. Since the beginning of 2014, several outbreaks involving novel reassortant influenza A(H5N8) viruses have been detected in poultry and wild bird species in South Korea as well as in China. The
viruses have been detected in captured and apparently healthy wild migratory birds and dead wild birds, as well as in
domestic chickens, geese and ducks. Natural infection of dogs with A(H5N8) has been reported from South Korea. No human cases of avian influenza A(H5N8) have been reported related to the current circulating virus.