PARIS (Reuters) – Senegal has reported an outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu on a poultry farm, the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Friday.
The outbreak occurred on March 18 in a poultry farm located in the southwestern part of the country, 37 km away from the Langue de Barbarie National Park, where an H5N1 outbreak was diagnosed on March 12, WOAH said, citing Senegalese authorities.
“It is highly likely that there is an epidemiological link between both outbreaks,” it said.
Avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has been spreading around the world in the past year, killing more than 200 million birds, sending egg prices rocketing and raising concern among governments about human transmission.
(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
