1st U.S. case of H5N9 bird flu reported on California duck farm – National [Video]

The United States has reported its first outbreak of H5N9 bird flu in poultry on a duck farm in California, the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Monday.

U.S. authorities also detected the more common H5N1 strain on the same farm in Merced County, California, they said in a report to Paris-based WOAH, adding that almost 119,000 birds on the farm had been killed by Dec. 2.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), commonly called bird flu, has spread around the globe in recent years, leading to the culling of hundreds of millions of poultry. It also spread to dozens of mammal species, including dairy cows in the U.S. and killed a person in Louisiana.

The strain that has caused most damage in recent years has been …