China Reports Bird Flu Outbreak in Hunan Province
Posted: Sat Feb 01, 2020 10:10 pm
FILE PHOTO: Chickens are seen at a livestock market before the market was asked to stop trading on March 1 in prevention of bird flu transmission, in Kunming, Yunnan province, China Feb. 22, 2017.
As if health officials in China don't have enough on their hands with a spreading coronavirus, now officials announced an outbreak of bird flu.
China's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs announced Saturday an outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain of H5N1 bird flu at a farm in the southern province of Hunan.
The virus was discovered on a farm with nearly 8,000 chickens — more than half of them have already died because of the outbreak.
China is not alone in trying to tamp down the spread of this virus.
Earlier this week authorities in India started culling chickens and destroying eggs to contain the bird flu virus.
And a different strain — the H5N8 virus — has spread throughout eastern Europe in recent weeks.
A bird flu outbreak in China back in 2013 ended up costing $6.5 billion in economic losses, according to U.N. experts.