UK DEFRA: An epidiomological report on avian influenza in a quarantine premises in Essex

The UK Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has released a report on the H5N1 discovered in quarantine in the UK. The PDF can be accessed here. It seems the parrot from Surinam was likely not H5N1 positive: samples from the parrot were pooled with the Taiwanese birds (pooling samples is standard procedure), and so when the pool was positive, they could not determine which of the birds actually had the virus.

Here are the conclusions from the report:

• The parrot and budgerigar kept as pets by the keeper at the adjoining premises were not infected with an AI virus.
• No isolates of avian influenza virus were made from the birds imported from Surinam or the sentinel chickens other than the initial pooled sample, which included a mesia.
• Within the species imported from Taiwan the virus (H5N1) was only detected in the Mesias.
• H5N1 virus was only isolated from a proportion of the stored dead birds. Autolysis may have precluded virus isolation from some of these birds.
• No virus was isolated from the healthy Mesias that were humanely put down on 21 October. This suggests that mortality in this species was associated with H5N1 infection, but it is uncertain whether it was the only cause of death
• H5N1 infection was, on the balance of probabilities, introduced into the facility by the Mesias
• Infection with H5N1 was transmitting between the Mesias, but from the evidence of the virological examinations it had not transmitted to the other species in the facility.
• The molecular genetic characterization isolate of H5N1 examined so far has indicated that it is most closely associated with an isolate from Chinese ducks.
• The mortality in the Surinamese Caiques does not appear to be associated with H5N1 infection – the bird that was dead on arrival was virus negative.

Damien