09.01.2017

The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has detected the presence of Eurasian/North American reassortant H5N2 avian influenza in a wild mallard duck in Fergus County, Montana.  No illness or mortalities in domestic poultry in the U.S. have been detected.
The sample, taken from a hunter-harvested bird through routine surveillance, was tested at the Colorado State University Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory and forwarded to USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratories in Ames, Iowa. Characterization of the sample is ongoing. 
This appears to be one of the strains involved in the outbreaks of 2014-2015.
The reoccurrence of highly pathogenic avian influenza A(H5N2) virus clade 2.3.4.4 was already found in a wild mallard in Alaska, USA, in August 2016.