Mexico detects H5N1 bird flu in farm near U.S. border

[October 31, 2022]  MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has detected the severe H5N1 strain of avian influenza at a 60,000-bird commercial farm in Nuevo Leon state on the border with the United States, the government said on Sunday.

The discovery at the chicken farm comes just over a week after Mexico reported its first-ever case of H5N1 avian influenza, or bird flu, to the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH).

The disease was detected when Mexico's agri-food health service tested samples from a farm in Montemorelos, Nuevo Leon, after a producer there raised concerns, Mexico's agricultural ministry said in a statement.

A quarantine has been declared and an unspecified number of birds will be euthanized to control the outbreak, the ministry said. It did not say how many birds were infected.

Mexico's first case of the virus was detected in a wild bird in the Metepec district to the west of capital Mexico City.

Another H5N1 case was found in a wild bird in Tijuana in Baja California state, Mexico's agriculture ministry said, as well as in a 186-chicken, family-run farm in Chiapas in the country's south.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has killed poultry in the United States and Europe, with experts concerned the virus did not abate this year as it has previously done during the northern hemisphere summer.

(Reporting by Adriana Barrera; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Tom Hogue)

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