The World Health Organization (WHO) today urged countries to step up their efforts to detect possible human avian flu cases, as outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N8 continue to spread across Europe and other parts of the world.

Caroline Brown, MD, program manager for flu and other respiratory pathogens for the WHO's Regional Office for Europe, said in a statement today that although no human H5N8 cases have been reported so far, "this does not mean this cannot happen, as experience tells us."

So far, at least 24 European countries have reported H5N8 outbreaks since June 2016, at least 3 of them in the past 2 weeks. Countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa have also reported H5N8 outbreaks.

Since yesterday, four already-affected countries reported more outbreaks in wild birds or poultry, according to the latest reports from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE). Other avian flu viruses are circulating alongside H5N8, including highly pathogenic H5N5 and low-pathogenic H5N3.

Health officials consider the H5N8 threat to humans to be relatively low, but the WHO said because similar subtypes have caused human diseases in the past, a jump to humans can't be excluded.

More H5N8 in Europe

German agriculture officials yesterday reported two more H5N8 outbreaks, one involving a wild duck found dead on Jan 20 at a zoo in Brandenburg state in the northeast that houses 789 captive birds. Another outbreak was detected on Jan 23 in breeding geese at a farm in Lower Saxony state in the northwest, where H5N8 killed 32 of 3,000 birds. Authorities destroyed the remaining birds to curb disease spread.

Italy today reported another H5N8 outbreak, this time at a layer farm in the Veneto region in the northeast, according to an OIE report. The outbreak began on Jan 25, killing 280 of 37,000 birds. The remaining ones were culled as a control measure.

Poland's agriculture ministry reported another outbreak in backyard birds and nine more detections in wild birds, according to separate reports to the OIE. The event in backyard birds began on Jan 23, killing all but 1 of 25 birds at a location in Lubuskie province in the west. The wild bird outbreaks occurred from Jan 17 to Jan 21, with the virus killing 60 birds in nine locations in five different provinces, mostly mute swans.

Elsewhere, the United Kingdom reported another H5N8 outbreak at a turkey farm in Lincolnshire in the eastern part of Britain, the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) announced today in a statement. The flock houses 19,500 birds, and the virus killed a number of them. Response steps include culling and putting protection and surveillance zones in place.

H5N5 strikes two more German farms

Meanwhile, agriculture officials in in Germany's Schleswig-Holstein state today reported two more highly pathogenic H5N5 outbreaks, according to a government statement translated and posted by Avian Flu Diary (AFD), an infectious disease news blog.

The turkey farms in the cities of Grevenkop and Elskop are owned by the same company affected by the country's first H5N5 outbreak in poultry, reported earlier this week.

A recent risk assessment of the virus from Germany's Friedrich Loeffler Institute said H5N5 appears to be a highly aggressive assortant from H5N8, according to AFD.

See also:

Jan 26 WHO Europe statement

Jan 25 OIE report on H5N8 in Germany

Jan 26 OIE report on H5N8 in Italy

Jan 26 OIE report on H5N8 in Polish poultry

Jan 25 OIE report on H5N8 in Polish wild birds

Jan 26 DEFRA report

Jan 26 AFD post