What is going on in Eurasia with respect to avian influenza?
Eurasian high path H5N1 avian influenza was first described in Hong Kong in 1996. Since then it spread in poultry and domestic waterfowl populations throughout Southeast Asia. In 2005, the virus appears to have spread to wild, migratory waterfowl, leading to outbreaks in waterfowl in China and Mongolia. Now the virus has been identified in several other countries in Central Asia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and Africa. The strain is thought to spread via the legal and illegal international trade in domestic birds and bird-related products, and to a lesser extent by migratory waterfowl. Millions of domestic birds have been and continue to be culled in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus, and 192 humans are known to have contracted Eurasian H5N1, 109 of whom have died (as of 6 April 2006). It is important to note this strain does not spread efficiently from human to human and to date no one has been infected directly from a wild bird.
