FAO says H5N1 outbreaks are up this year

Robert Roos * News Editor

Sep 13, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – Reversing a trend that began in 2007, the number of countries affected by H5N1 avian influenza and the number of reported H5N1 outbreaks in birds have increased this year, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says.

Sixteen countries (plus Hong Kong) had H5N1 outbreaks this year through August, compared with about 11 in all of 2009, according to charts in the Sep 2 issue of FAO AIDE News, a bulletin that reports periodically on avian flu.

In the first 6 months of this year, 390 H5N1 outbreaks were reported, versus 297 for all of 2009, the FAO said. However, those numbers do not include Indonesia, which reports the majority of H5N1 poultry outbreaks worldwide, because Indonesia, unlike other countries, counts outbreaks at the village level rather than the household level, the report says.

The FAO cautioned that the number of outbreaks is more subjective than the number of affected countries, because it is strongly influenced by such variables as the case definition, awareness level, and effectiveness of surveillance.

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The FAO also reports that H5N1 outbreaks have occurred this year in several countries where the disease was thought to have been eliminated: Cambodia, Israel, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, and Romania. The only country newly affected by the virus so far this year is Bhutan.